Challenge: Singing

Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.  Col 3:16 NASB

I used to sing a lot.  I would sing on my own.  I would sing along with the music playing on my tape player, cd player, iPod, or computer.  I would pull out accompaniment tracks and sing along just for the fun of it as I went about the tasks of my day.  I loved to sing!  I still do, but for some reason I do much less of it.

It’s not so much the loss of the physical act of singing that I am noticing so strongly this morning.  It’s more the loss of the song in my heart.  I don’t know when it faded…or why.  Cynicism?  Busyness?  Distraction? 

One thing I do know is that as the song faded, so did my natural inclination toward praise and toward keeping the Word of God continually on my heart. 

I love the way God never uses one source only to show me when I lack in such things.  I finished reading in Colossians and writing in my journal about the singing, and then I flipped back to my chronological Bible reading.  There were two passages today, both of which were songs – Ps 90 and Deut 32, songs of Moses.*  My former pastor’s wife Iva May wrote a devotional blog post to go along with each day’s Bible reading, and all of her thoughts today were centered on the importance of song.  She closed today’s devotional with this thought:

“The evidence of a Spirit-filled life is a singing heart (Ephesians 5:18-19).  Ask the Lord to fill you with His Spirit.  Then you’ll have to sin to keep from singing!” 

My challenge is to consistently sing again.  Not just the strict idea of putting words to music (although that will be a big part of it), but the lifting of my soul and spirit as Scripture pours through my heart and mind. 

*I started going through the chronological Bible with a group a few months ago, and we are not reading in accordance with the printed dates.