A Good Read
"EPH 5:19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs."I was pretty typical for a boy in school. I enjoyed reading…when I wanted to read it! So I enjoyed history, and geography, and (out of the classroom) adventure stories. But poetry, ugh! Didn't like it. Didn't want to read it. And half the time I couldn't understand it. It is not too surprising, then, that when I would read in the Bible I was drawn to the booksabout history, geography, and adventure. Biblical life is fascinating to me, and I loved readingabout these real people with real emotions. But poetry, especially the Psalms, ugh! Didn'tlike it. Didn't want to read it. And half the time I couldn't understand it. A while back I changed my Bible reading from sporadic and random to regular and structured by using one of those "read through in a year" systems. Uh oh, at one point in the year I reached the Psalms. "Well, I'm going to finish my goal…I will read this," I said to myself through clenched teeth. Often I would feel as though my eyes were scanning the words without any meaning hittingmy brain. But then, I would catch a phrase that I had heard before. Or I would recognize words that I had sung in church or listened to by some contemporary artist. And I really gotto thinking about what the Psalms are. They are lyrics to spiritual songs. Some were written by people of high station (David, Solomon),others by Levites serving as priests, and still others by people whose names have been lost to us.People, just as we are, with ranges of emotions from joy to despair, confidence to fear, but underthe direction of God they put pen to paper and let flow from their hearts. PS 84:10 Better is one day in your courtsthan a thousand elsewhere;I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my Godthan dwell in the tents of the wicked. PS 127:1 Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. PS 144:3 O LORD, what is man that you care for him? These were songs sung by the congregation of Israel, and it touched their hearts in a specialway. You know what I mean. Whether they are hymns from earlier years, or music from theJesus' People days of the 70's, or praise songs out of the 80's, or worship music from the 90's,or the contemporary Christian music of today, when we hear certain music that touches ourhearts it brings us closer to Him. Read a Psalm today. Read another Psalm tomorrow. Then read another one the day after that. And see if some of them don't just touch your heart the way they touched the hearts of men and women thousands of years ago. PS 147:1 How good it is to sing praises to our God,how pleasant and fitting to praise him!
Paul Neighbors
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