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Paraphrase of Psalm 16

Here is another in my series of personal prayers based off of paraphrasing psalms. I’m finding this so fun and helpful–I hope it inspires you to try your own!

Read the original psalm here.

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Lord, keep me going.

I am like a phone with an ever-depleting battery

And You are all the electricity I could ever need.

And I’m making the choice to pick up my cable and plug it into You.

I know You are “The Lord,” the One and Only True Lord of all.

But I’m making the life-altering choice to make it personal

And bring all that You have put under my influence, authority, and responsibility

Into alignment with Reality,

That reality of the Lordship of You.

So I’m not just saying “The Lord” anymore,

I’m calling You “My Lord”

With all the trust, surrender, and unconditional obedience that that implies.

And I repent of where I haven’t.

I repent of where my life has called you “My Option” instead of “My Lord.”

I’m sorry.

I say to The Lord, You are also My Lord.

I really don’t have any other option.

And I really don’t want it any other way.

Because I am a phone with an-ever depleting battery

And You are the only real electric outlet I know.

What else am I going to plug into?

I only have one cable and one port and one plug.

I only get to choose One Lord, One Source, One God-Level Allegiance.

And when I unplug from You, I start to fade away.

You are the Only One I was made for.

Other cables don’t fit me.

So I’m coming back, plugging in, and choosing You again.

The other phones plugged into You–they make my day.

There’s so much more than enough of You to go around.

I see them lighting up, their battery symbols going from red to green

As they rely on You.

They increase my faith.

I look at what You do in their lives, and I cry, “Holy!”

The other phones that try to plug into anything and everything else

–Well, I know it’s just a matter of time

Before their power fades, their screen blacks out,

They die.

And I don’t want to go there.

I don’t want to choose suicide-by-idolatry.

So I choose You.

I choose You, I choose You, I choose You.

I choose You on the menu, I choose You out of the line-up,

And in choosing You, I choose what You have chosen.

I pick You and You pick everything else.

I choose You to be my Lord, and You choose what my life looks like now:

Where I live, where I go, who I love, what I do, and why.

You choose everything else.

I’ve made my choice.

I made One Choice, to call You Lord, to plug my one allegiance into You alone

And all the other choices are Yours.

And guess what?

No regrets.

It was worth it.

I love having an Omnipotent Brain running my little life for me,

An Infinite Heart planning my steps.

If I had it all to choose over, I’d choose You all over again.

Only I’d choose You a little bit faster this time!

I look out at the life You’ve given me,

And I say, “Wow.”

Just, “Wow.”

There isn’t much else to say.

You know one of my absolute favorite things about You?

It’s the way You talk to me.

It’s those conversations we have in the middle of the night,

Your spirit and my spirit, whispering like two little sisters under the covers.

It’s those sleepover-parties-with-God

Where I tell you all my secrets,

And You actually tell me some of Yours, too.

Lord, I’m getting a tattoo of You on my retinas

So that I can’t look at anything else without seeing it through Your face.

No matter how much it hurts, I’m not forgetting You again

I’m not looking away, looking around, looking down.

I’ve seen what that does to me.

And I’ve seen what it does to me

When the fact that You are holding my hand

Is more real to me than the fact that we are crossing the street.

I put my life in Your hands like a fearless four-year-old

Crossing the highway with Daddy

Who doesn’t even think about being afraid

Because You loom large.

The decision to trust You is the best one I’ve ever made

For my body, soul, and spirit.

It has the longest return on investment.

When I’m six-feet-under, You’ll still be taking good care of me

Because I signed up for Your Resurrection Policy

And I’ve seen how well it worked on Jesus the Beta Tester

–He never even had a chance to start decomposing!

The most important thing I’ll ever learn, I learned from You.

His name is Jesus.

In a world of confusion, He is the Way

In a world of lies, He is the Truth

In a world of death, He is the Life.

Lord, my Lord (I love calling You that!)

I’m setting out on that Way,

Believing that Truth

And inhaling deeply of that Life,

That Life so enduring it can get me into a grave and out of it again

The way He did.

I’m following that Jesus-Road to the House it leads to,

The House Where Dad Lives

And the Chair Next to You

Where Jesus has been saving a seat for me.

I can see Him now, with one hand on that chair He’s saved for me,

The other hand waving wildly, big grin,

The way 9-year-old “best friends” saved seats for each other in Sunday School.

He’s yelling, “Over here! Come on!

THIS WILL BE WORTH IT!

I made it all the way through death and resurrection obeying God

And this is awesome! This is joy turned on 100%,

Joy like you’ve never experienced it before,

The joy of hanging out with Father God

And being home. And I’m saving this seat for you!

Don’t give up! Come on! Come on!”

When I fix my eyes on things above

I see You there, doing that.

My Best Friend.

How I love You!

You are my Forever.

Published inParaphrased Psalms

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