God’s Word commands Christians to … Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. According to Ephesians 5:19 these conversations are to be the overflow of a thankful hearts filled with songs to the Lord. Our inner dialog is so filled with love, gratitude and awe for God that it naturally colors all our speech. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
I think we face two challenges: 1) we are as a society schooled and encouraged in the art of grumbling. We need to discipline our inner dialog to line up with God’s expectation and not the world’s. Our public interactions will never be characterized by praise and gratitude until our hearts are filled with those qualities. 2) If we don’t understand the call we’re not apt to answer it. Until I dug into this passage it sounded so unnatural that I wasn’t sure how to make it part of my life. Forsooth, how doth I speaketh to thee in a Psalm? It’s simpler than it sounds … and we’re probably already doing it. A psalm is simply, “A story of God’s deliverance or a commemoration of His mercies received.” Here’s a great example from a friend of mine whose been battling cancer. Enjoy this story from Kim and the application.
” This is the phone that a Kindergarten teacher, that I have the pleasure to work with, brought in several days ago. It’s a tattle phone. The kids take their misunderstandings, infractions, and worries and pick up the phone to supposedly record a message for the teacher to listen to later. Of course by the time the “later” has arrived the problem has ceased to be a problem and often they have moved on to play with new friends or even the one they had the original problem with. Oh to be 5 again! 😊 ”
