Abundantly glad you are here and possibly joining Memorize 365 Challenge. Even if you’re not participating this time around, our God invites you, in your way, this season  to open your soul and breathe in what grace breathed-out, a Word…living.  Smiles of Grace will always be, by grace, about Jesus and these real lives we live that can possibly…hopefully bring Him even an ounce of the glory He deserves. 

Have you picked your passage yet?! I know how excited you are…me too, me too (big smile)! We are going to be Word dwellers this year…let His Word be at home in our hearts. Let our hearts be at home in His Word. The enemy couldn’t be madder. Fight for this.

You were probably thinking you’d drop by here and I would simply say ‘Get started!’ And yeah that’s sort of true…but here’s how you get started. Ready?

*Week 2*

Read that passage. That’s it! Read it everyday for the whole week. Pray through it. Ask the Lord to make it not just a part of your memory but a part of your soul. You can memorize just about anything you want to, but that’s not our primary goal…remember? Our eyes are on Jesus, to adore Him. To let His Word abide in you…you’re going to have to love it…. This is the art of remaining with Him. There is no presence of God apart from the truths of God. If we are going to live in Jesus, smiling free, we must live in His truth.

We ‘breathe in’ what God breathed-out.

Pneuma the Greek word for Spirit means wind. It means “to breathe, blow…” (Vine’s). Is it any wonder then that the Word is God-breathed? The Spirit moves us along too breathing life out all over us Jesus seekers, the Word dwellers. We breathe in *memorize* and then we breathe out *grace to do the Word.* It’s Philippians 2…He works in us according to His purpose & we work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

There is fresh wind that could blow all over your life like crazy? A work of the Spirit, our God, that could toss you in the right direction. One thing is for sure, if you wind up in a whirl-wind from God as you experience this discipline of grace we call memorizing…as you choose steadfastness over fear, over failure…the force of that wind might bow you to the knees, but you will live different. Yes, you will be different. And at the end of all these short days if we want anything it will be to have walked with God. And y’all THIS is how we walk. This is how we put one shaky foot in front of another and learn to stop stumbling quite as much. It’s easier to walk in the light. And the sheer beauty of God radiates more off of our worn faces because in His Word we can actually SEE it!

Maybe what we really want is wind-blown lives? Not life as usual, but life full…free.

It always always the Word that brings life. There is no other way for the Jesus seeker. The Word…a lamp shining in a dark place…that we must pay attention to. Shining as we read in the dark places of our soul. Leading us out of darkness into His marvelous light.

Did I mention what passage I chose to memorize this year? It’s 2 Peter. Listen to His breath…to the wind blow… Let this Word rearrange your soul.

And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

2 Peter 1:19-21