Timeless Hymns

Scripture:  Ephesians 5:18-20a (NASB) - “…but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalm and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord…always giving thanks for all things…”    

Hymns that remind us of the unfathomable greatness of God should never be “archived” to the halls of antiquity in our hearts and minds.  Truthfully, as one eminent preacher once said, it’s a worthwhile and edifying practice to add the singing of a couple of stanzas of classic and meaningful hymns to one’s “quiet time” every day!  It’s like enjoying an abbreviated private worship service in your day.  In addition to our prayers for people and circumstances, along with Scripture reading and meditation, singing a brief hymn helps revitalize your soul, encouraging a weary heart and mind to get “spiritually re-ammunitionized” to stay on the battlefield for the glory of our Lord and Savior!    

A rousing chorus of C. A. Tindley’s “We’ll Understand it Better By and By,” anyone? How about “Count Your Blessings” by Johnson Oatman? Are you getting a bit weary of the endless news stories about all that’s in perpetual upheaval in this world?  You’ll find the lyrics to “My Faith Has Found a Resting Place,” (by Lidie H. Edmunds), or “In Times Like These” (by Ruth Cay Jones) can minister to your soul about where to keep your mind, heart, and spirit focused as you go through your day.  The words of “Never Alone,” while seldom sung these days, is quite relatable to most souls who struggle sometimes with loneliness.  Music that ministers to the human soul is undoubtedly just one of many gracious gifts our Lord ordained from before the foundations of the world because He realized that we would at times find no greater solace, besides Himself, than in the soulful, scripturally sound principles expressed in hymns.  The Book of Psalms, itself a collection of Spirit-inspired songs and prayers, has ministered peace, comfort, and encouragement throughout the ages to those pursuing such blessings.  “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!  Oh my soul, praise Him, for He is thy help and salvation!” (by Joachim Neander).  Forsake and neglect the hymns?  Not in this lifetime!  (Nor the next!)

Prayer:  Dear Father, while we heed not the voice of cynical gospel-rejecting critics who mock our trusting in You and Your provisions  for our peace and stability in this world—a world that can offer, at best, only temporal “band-aid solutions” to the problems plaguing mankind from Adam and Eve til now--  remind us to never forsake the quieting God-confidence and assurances found in singing and making melody in our hearts to You by way of the great hymns. In Jesus’ name, Amen!

(By Denise Diggs)