My Thoughts, A Melody

My thoughts, a Melody.  Colossians 3.16

Music is powerful . . . indeed, music is so very powerful.

Music seems to have the ability to go to the places inside of us where mere words without melody do not penetrate.  Often, when teaching on some topic or another, I use a song to set a tone or a mood . . . sometimes to get folks thinking or musing, or perhaps to unwittingly drop their guard. 

Plato wrote, “Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.” I have read it several times, and each time, its meaning grows, as does my understanding!

Since reading Colossians 3.16, I have been enchanted by the latter half of the verse:  Use all wisdom to teach and instruct each other by singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Music, which incorporated both singing and dancing, goes back as far as one righteous Jewish boy, David, who played his harp and sang to the first king of Israel, Saul.  David passionately and unabashedly sang and danced before the Lord.  Now I am not a historian of worship or anything, but perhaps David was the first true worshipper . . . lifting his hands, singing, even clapping his hands, as he danced before the Lord!   Can you imagine?  How scandalous!  And so it was from this Judaic tradition that the early Christian church sang psalms and hymns of praise because they had grown up doing so within their strong Hebrew tradition.

Similarly, music played a significant role in the slavery movement in three different arenas: ‘spirituals’, work songs and recreation songs.  Many of these songs of hope gave way to musical styles with which we are familiar: the blues, gospel music and even jazz.  How creative is our Creator who gives to his creation good gifts that keep on giving, my dear friends—even when the gift comes out of a time that is hard, a time that is oh, so bad.   Surely music is one of his greatest gifts, his greatest talents . . . is it not? 

Where do you worship?  Is it in the Greek or Russian Orthodox Church?  Then, you know the premium that is placed on sacred music!  Is it in the liturgy of the Catholic or Episcopalian church?  Or how about in the free-form hands-in-the-air setting where expressive contemporary worship music is more likely the norm?  Each of these has its own style, each has its own sound.  But now I take you back to our text, where Paul wrote:

~Use all wisdom to teach and instruct each other by singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 

Whatever your style, whatever your Christian tradition, I pray that you will sing to the Lord.  It is good, it is right to sing praise to the Lord, who promises that he ‘inhabits the praises of his people’.*  ‘Want to invite God into your gathering?  Sing praises to him.  ‘Want to invite God into the place where you are—your bedroom, your car, your …?  Sing praises to him.  For he inhabits the praises of his people!  He does not care if you sing on-key … he does not care if you can even carry a tune, he hears the tone of your heart.  He finds your praises beautiful. 

One of the ways I keep myself centered on him throughout my day is listening to music that honors him.  Often, I already know or if not, seek to learn the words that I might sing along, offering from my heart, pure praise, surrender, and devotion.  Music is powerful.  It is oh, so powerful because it gives my thoughts a melody. 

*Psalm 22.3