What do you do when you have a bad day…complain about the
unfairness of life, tell your sob story to anyone in shouting distance, or
maybe just crawl under the covers and hope things turn out better the next
morning? How about turning to God and focusing on His amazing love and the
grace that is greater than our sin? He has redeemed us and given us all we have
needed day by day as we acknowledge our dependence in Christ alone. God will
take care of you in times like these, and as we know His eye is on the sparrow,
joy can fill our inmost heart today as He leads us to higher ground. Come, we
that love the Lord, to join in a song of praising the mighty fortress that is
our God.
In the previous paragraph, perhaps you picked up on some
familiar phrases that came straight from several hymns of the faith. These
hymns (and others like them) lift up the soul, provide strength to the weak, and
cultivate joy in the believer’s heart. In the latest book I read, Then Sings My
Soul, Vol. 3, author Robert Morgan highlights many of the hymns that form our
rich heritage and gives the background on the writing of the hymn. Covered in
the book are ancient hymns sung by the early Christians to modern ones written by
current hymnwriters, with a few stops along the way. This is the third book in
the trilogy, so not all the traditional hymns are covered in this installment.
I really appreciated the author’s thoughts and views on
hymns. Hymns are a way of turning our focus outward and upward for what God has
done for us. Hymns are eloquent expressions of our beliefs, and many are
prayers that we sing to God. In addition to being used in corporate worship, they
should be read, committed to memory, meditated on, played, prayed, leaned on,
quoted, and passed on to the next generation. It is important to dig into the
wealth of wisdom the generations before us have left us through the richness of
the hymns of the faith. Along with the cloud of witnesses, let us here and now
proclaim, “How great Thou art!”
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of Then Sings
My Soul, Vol. 3 through Book Sneeze, in exchange for my honest review.
