I’ve had the routine of a daily quiet time for many years, probably most of my adult life. I pray, read my Bible, and dwell on God’s word. In the last couple months, I’ve added something to my daily routine that, I kid you not, has changed my life.
I learned as a teenager to start prayer with praising God, so I have the habit of doing that. For decades, I’ve open my prayer time by praising God for who He is. Then, our world came crashing down around us.
And my prayers for so many days were silent pleads. Still, I praised God, but my vocabulary was becoming very limited.
This mattered to me, not because I was trying to impress God with big words, but because my heart’s cry of who God is had been reduced to a couple phrases I would utter over and over. God, you are sovereign. God, you are good. It was all I could manage for awhile. And you know what? I know HE was good with that. He knew what was going on in my heart and I didn’t feel at all condemned.
Then some time passed, and one morning, when I was feeling particularly sad and vulnerable, a song came to mind. I sang it, paying close attention to the lyrics, and my soul sighed with relief. God, you are victorious! You are awesome in your power! You have conquered, you have beaten the power of death! All of these things I knew to be true about God, were revealed to me in a song and I was able to proclaim them honestly as I prayed and praised God.
I was singing through tears, but they were cleansing tears.
The next day, I did something dangerous…I picked up my phone as I started my quiet time! I’m only joking a little, because I am the queen of distraction. But I took a risk and looked up a certain worship song. I found a video that had lyrics with it and I sang to the Lord and was filled with all kinds of new praises to sing to my God.
Music is powerful to me. I’m actually what’s called a highly sensitive person, so music moves me pretty deeply. When a song comes on, I can easily plummet to a sad or dark mood, or be suddenly energized and happy, or feel wistful, or reverent or totally joyful. There is no middle ground with me.
Ever since that morning, I’ve chosen a song to listen to and dwell on every day as I start my quiet time. I don’t know why I’ve never done it before, singing worship songs has always been my favorite part of church. The words remind me and teach me and instruct me. And the music fills me with joy and soothes my spirit. I enter into my time of prayer and study with a heart that is full of praise and it is impossible to not be changed by that.
What is your favorite worship song?
PS: I’ve made a Pinterest board that has worship song videos that feature lyrics, so if you want to start each day with a song, you can go to this board and find a variety of songs. I usually prefer the videos to just listening to a song, because I like to have the lyrics in front of me.
Frannie says
I love this. Thank you for sharing! I think I will be implementing this into my morning prayer and reading time — I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. Lately, I’ve been going through both beautiful joys and great sorrows and have felt like my prayer life has become weak because my words aren’t expressing my heart adequately enough. But worshiping the Lord? This sounds like just the thing I need to get through this wordless season.
Blessings!
Angela says
I’m so glad you’ll be doing this. Let me know how it goes <3