Psalm 42:1-2

As the deer longs for streams of water,
so I long for you, O God.

I thirst for God, the living God.
When can I go and stand before him?

When I thought of this idea a few days ago of blogging scriptures about how God loves me or I love God, I figured that all the verses that would come to mind or that I would find would at least have the word 'love' in them. I guess I thought that if something didn't just come to mind that I would at least start my search for a verse with the word 'love' in it. :) But this morning, as I took a minute to see what verse would come to mind, this is the one that 'popped' into my head. I almost considered not using it since it didn't have 'love' in it - but then, it's been on my mind all day and well, I decided that it's just silly to be that legalistic. ;-)

ANYWAYS, several times in the last couple of weeks, I've gone to bed and then found myself feeling really, really thirsty. So I lay there and try to decide if it's really worth it to get back out of bed, into the cold, and go get a glass of water. But the longer I lay there, the more I know I have to get up - I just can't get to sleep feeling that thirsty.

Now speaking of getting up --- I am NOT a morning person. I usually sleep as late as I can to still get where I need to be. :) But I decided at the beginning of the year that I wanted to read thru the Bible in a year and keep up with that daily. The only way I knew I would really stay on top of that would be to get up early in the morning and do my reading first thing, before everyone else gets up. SO, I've been getting up at 6:00 every morning to spend that time with God and do my reading... and you know what I'm finding? That even though it's really cold, and I'm usually very tired, my longing to be with God outweighs all of that. I actually look forward to getting up! :) It's been such a blessing. I really feel like I'm growing in my love for God as I spend that 'quiet' time in the morning and start my day with God.