"Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord" ~ Ephesians 5:19Here is a great faith-building secret. Sing and make melody to the Lord. And not just with your vocal chords, but with your heart too. I [Eugenia Price, the author] will never be through thanking God for one particular album of old fashioned Gospel songs recorded by Blanche Thebom some years ago. Miss Thebom sang "Softly and Tenderly" and through this song I was called back into fellowship with Christ. When I'm overly tired or confused, to this day nothing lifts me quite like playing Mahalia Jackson's gospel songs. Mahalia "speaks to me in ... spiritual songs" and so thoroughly turns my attention back to the joy of belonging to Jesus that the things which seemed so troublesome a few minutes before fall out of sight (or at least into place!), and I find myself "singing and making melody in my heart to the Lord."
My faith leaps up because it has looked up to Him again. The next time you want to cry or lash out at someone or sink into the luxury of a black mood, force yourself to singe something like "More Love to Thee, O Christ." This very day as I write this, I had to visit someone in deep trouble. I needed the time to write. I didn't want to go at all. But the Lord needed me there. And as I dressed, I sang "Where He leads me I will follow..." soon I was rejoicing that he had given me this unexpected way of showing my love for Him. I dressed, singing with my vocal chords only. I returned to the typewriter a few hours later listening to my own heart "making melody to the Lord." There is no melody like the melody of an obedient heart. Even when it has been so recently a stubborn heart!
"Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."
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