Day Three
"Ecstasy of Praise"

Psalm 119: 9-16

ב Beth

9 How can a young person stay on the path of purity?
    By living according to your word.
10 I seek you with all my heart;
    do not let me stray from your commands.
11 I have hidden your word in my heart
    that I might not sin against you.
12 Praise be to you, Lord;
    teach me your decrees.
13 With my lips I recount
    all the laws that come from your mouth.
14 I rejoice in following your statutes
    as one rejoices in great riches.
15 I meditate on your precepts
    and consider your ways.
16 I delight in your decrees;
    I will not neglect your word.

When you are in love--romantic love, you can not do enough for the person you are in love with. When you realize God's love for you and you begin to really love God--this is not romantic love but love on a whole different level....big and overwhelming and glorious and yes, it is ecstasy!

For years I said that I love God and that God loves me.  I was sincere.  I believed what I said....then one day after several years of almost daily meditation and almost unceasing prayer, I was alone in my car, driving down the highway and all of a sudden the thought, "God loves me"  filled my head and then my heart and then my whole spirit.  It was incredible!  I wasn't saying God loves me anymore--I was feeling God's love and I felt a bliss that is very hard to describe in words.  I felt as though I was glowing with the energy of this love and it filled me to overflowing!  I "heard" God say, "I love you, Paulletta."......and it was real!  And I wanted to do was be able to give it back....I wanted this love God was giving me and I wanted the relationship of this love forever.....

This ecstasy lasted for awhile but gradual over time slowed way down and I was sad....and then this small quiet voice spoke to me to let me know that if as a human, I felt this all the time, I would literally be consumed.  I had a long way to go before I could handle the full force of God's love.  I would remember the experience, but my "work" had just begun.

In my whole life, I have only felt this bliss a few times....but it has happened enough for me to know that God's love is real, God is real, and that God is love.......and that is why I continue to pray and to meditate and try very hard to live the life God wants me to live.

When I originally read this devotion of prayer and praise and poetry and the psalm, I was reminded of that special day not too long ago but forgot the wisdom that God had shared with me.  Love and devotion are just what you do that is sincere--done out of love.  It is not trying to "prove" by good works...lot's and lot's of good works...that you have earned God's love.  I could never do that...no human being could ever do that....and that is why God's love is so heavenly....it is unconditional and when you finally begin to understand this, then you feel the ecstasy of praise.....