Category Archives: Psalms, Hymns, & Spiritual Songs

Our children and I are currently working on memorizing Psalm 139. Many of us know the part about God forming us, knowing us before we were born. It is a great Scripture for Life. It is also a great teacher of the principle of Design,  giving us great comfort in knowing God has Designed each of us just as we are. We are “fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are [His] works.” But this Psalm also teaches us much about God Himself. It begins by declaring God’s Omniscience, especially about me, and His Omnipresence, especially in relation to me. It begins by declaring God has searched and known me. It ends asking God to search me and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts. Why? To see if there is any wicked thing in me, to lead me in the way everlasting. A declaration again of God’s Omniscience, and also the fact that even we don’t even know our own hearts. Only God knows us, both outside and in.

O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me . Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but , lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there . If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. …Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 139:1-10, 23-24

This beautiful song, Home, sung by the Esh family, was written by Amos Esh after his brother died overseas in mission work, several years ago.

Friday, 8 members of the Esh family, plus a fiance and a friend, died in a tragic car crash when a semi-truck crossed the median and hit them head on, as they were on their way to a wedding in Iowa. 2 children survived the crash. The truck driver also died. Funeral services for the Eshes and the fiance are tomorrow. The Esh family had also lost their home to a fire last year.

Usually I tend to go back and find timeless songs of Praise from the past. This week I’m listing a contemporary song. Praise our AMAZING God!

Indescribable

From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea
Creation’s revealing Your majesty
From the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring
Every creature unique in the song that it sings
All exclaiming

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.
You are amazing God
All powerful, untamable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees
as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God

Who has told every lightning bolt where it should go
Or seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow
Who imagined the sun and gives source to its light
Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night
None can fathom

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name
You are amazing God
All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God
You are amazing God

by Laura Story, sung by Chris Tomlin
© worshiptogether.com songs; Six Steps Music

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Worship list for this week:

You Are God Alone

Be Unto Your Name

It is You

Indescribable

Here I am to Worship

You Are My World

My Jesus I Love Thee

One of my favorite Psalms of reassurance that God, and not the wicked, is in control is Psalm 2. Here is it in versification from The Psalms of David in Metre.

Why rage the heathen? and vain things
Why do the people mind?
Kings of the earth do set themselves
And princes are combined

To plot against the Lord and His
Anointed, saying thus,
Let us asunder break their bands,
And cast their cords from us.

He that in heaven sits, shall laugh;
The Lord shall scorn them all.
Then shall He speak to them in wrath,
In rage He vex them shall.

Yet, not withstanding, I have Him
To be my King appointed;
And o’er Zion, my Holy hill,
I have Him King anointed.

I sure decree I will declare
The Lord hath said to me,
Thou art mine only Son: this day
I have begotten thee.

Ask of for me a heritage
The heathen I’ll make thine;
And, for possession, I to thee
Will give earth’s utmost line.

Thou shalt, as with a weighty rod
Of iron, break them all;
And as  potter’s sherd, Thou shalt
Them dash in pieces small.

Now, therefore, kings, be wise; be taught,
Ye judges of the earth:
Serve God in fear, and see that ye
Join trembling with your mirth.

Kiss ye the Son, lest in His ire
Ye perish from the way,
If once his wrath begin to burn:
Bless’d all that on Him stay.

I’m away for the weekend, but this week an old favorite has been resonating in my soul. Lord With Glowing Heart I’d Praise Thee, by Francis Scott Key. Read my post about it, and the lyrics here.

Ephesians 2:4-5 ~ But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

This is what I’m singing for special music at church tomorrow. My heart is filled with awe. You can listen to a clip of the song here.

This Fathomless Love

Words and music by Steve and Vikki Cook
As recorded on Songs for the Cross Centered Life

Lyrics

Lord, what moved Your heart to love lowly man
Before any star could herald Your praise?
And why did You come, abasing Yourself
Veiled in a robe of frail human clay?
Why would You, the pure, give Your life for the vile
The innocent seeking the guilty
To be reconciled?

I can’t comprehend this fathomless love
I’m gripped and amazed at what You have done
Why would the adored become the despised
To bear all the furious wrath that was mine?
How awesome this mystery
Of Your fathomless love for me

Why would You adopt and take as Your own
Those who had crushed Your one precious Son?
Why mercy and grace towards Your enemies?
Your name they have cursed and Your throne they have shunned
Oh, how could You choose to show kindness to these?
The ones who would mock You and hate You
The ones just like me?

© 1999 Sovereign Grace Worship (ASCAP).

Psalm 98:1-2 –  O sing unto THE LORD a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory. THE LORD hath made known his salvation: his righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the heathen.

This is one of my favorite Psalms.  (Yes, I looked back and it is the last Psalm I blogged on, nearly a year ago.) It shows how great God is and how good He is, and echos my worship and gratitude back to Him. I truly love to SING unto the Lord.

I have been in awe of my God, my King, my Savior, my Lord today, just rejoicing in His greatness and His goodness. Making melody in my heart and a joyful song with my voice.

While rejoicing in the spirit and in song, everyday life continues. Although He has kept me in perfect peace, my flesh has been frustrated at web changes today – the planned “remodeling” is going fine, but slow – I actually took a break from recoding pages today.  But I wasn’t counting on going to my blog and finding my template totally messed up!

I’ve been looking at an app that would work with my Dreamweaver CS3 to build WordPress templates, so I figured now was the time to give ThemeDreamer a try. Since I knew I wanted a different template anyhow, I’ve been looking – and not finding anything I like. Well, maybe with this new app I could find a basic shell I like and adapt it.

Found one, tried, it didn’t work. 🙁 Looked more, didn’t find anything else – even though I really wish this one had 3 columns rather than 2. Decided while I was at it I REALLY needed to upgrade my WP software, (running a REALLY old one,) figured that could be part of the reason it wasn’t working.

SOOOOO – upgraded WP. Still singing praises to my King.

I uploaded the new Template “out of the box” to make sure it worked OK on its own, without my changes.  It worked – but it’s ugly.

Now it’s going on midnight. But I can’t leave it as it is. I think my blog has shown over half a dozen “looks” today. Praying no-one looked while it was messed up or down in between.

Decided to go back in and make a few changes, just to see if it will work – without the Theme Dreamer, just basic CSS changes.

Beautiful! I love it! It still needs tweaking, (and I still wish I had 3 columns) but I am pleased with how it is shaping up, and I can go to bed now. Still singing praises to my King – not only because He is great and done marvelous things – like my salvation! Not only because He is good – and gives me the very breath of life. But also because He cares about the little things in my life, like nice looking blog sites.

I hope you like it too!

A friend sent me this, saying they were learning it in their church. This song is beautiful.

SDG,
Lisa

Before my children and I began singing hymns, I had never considered singing the psalms. (Obviously we don’t come from a background that teaches psalmody nor hymnody.) The only Psalm I’d heard sung was the 23rd – and snippets of others included in modern choruses.

Although I’d bought an old Psalter, mainly for educational purposes as we studied the Pilgrims and Puritans, we hadn’t seriously began learning them. When we went to a family camp 3 years ago we were introduced to congregational singing of the Psalms  – and their beauty. How anyone can say that psalm and hymn singing is dead and dreary is beyond me. (Well, obviously they’ve only encountered it in a “church” that is dead and dreary. The people are dead, not the hymns!)

The saints of God, with their voices raised in harmonious praise, singing the rich Psalms and Hymns, excellent music with depth, put the simple ditties we “grew up” on to shame. It isn’t just emotional-feelings stirring music, it is rich, deep complete soul enlivening and arresting music. It isn’t music you mindlessly sing, but music that engages both the mind and the heart, enabling you to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

I find it quite telling that in contemporary worship, people are always seeking a newer song list. The songs that were sung 2 or 3 years ago are “old” and everyone is tired of them. It seems it is always time to move on, because, although the songs were fun while they lasted, there was nothing substantial to keep them surviving long term. They were nothing but a fad. They stirred emotions once, but no longer are having the same effect. They’ve become ho-hum. (I can say that having been in worship ministry for over 20 years.)

Yet, other songs have survived hundreds of years, and still touch the hearts, souls, lives of people in deep ways. These songs have survived, not 2 years, not 10, not 20, but many, many generations, 100’s of years and still have a message that honors God and reaches hearts in lasting ways. (Not all hymns of course. There’s been a good share of shallow, non-lasting “fluff” there too. They aren’t still around, just like much of today’s music won’t still be around in a hundred years.)

The Psalm I’d like to share with you today is one we first heard at that family camp. The whole family loved it. We came home and tried to find it. It took nearly 3 years, but a couple months ago I finally found the tune online.

This is the version of words we sang at camp (I believe), (they were altered a bit for the tune.)

1 O sing a new song to the Lord,
for wonders he hath done:
His right hand and his holy arm
him victory hath won.

2 The Lord God his salvation
hath caused to be known;
His justice in the heathen’s sight
he openly hath shown.

3 He mindful of his grace and truth
to Isr’el’s house hath been;
And the salvation of our God
all ends of th’ earth have seen.

4 Let all the earth unto the Lord
send forth a joyful noise;
Lift up your voice aloud to him,
sing praises, and rejoice.

5 With harp, with harp, and voice of psalms,
unto Jehovah sing:
6 With trumpets, cornets, gladly sound
before the Lord the King.

7 Let seas and all their fullness roar;
the world, and dwellers there;
8 Let floods clap hands, and let the hills
together joy declare

9 Before the Lord; because he comes,
to judge the earth comes he:
He’ll judge the world with righteousness,
his folk with equity.

SDG,
Lisa

You just can’t imagine my young son’s thrill when he found out what our new hymn for this week was. It wasn’t a new one, as we usually learn each week. But this one is his absolute favorite!

Why was it our hymn for the week, if we already know it? Because that is the chapter we are at in our “Mr. Pipes” reading. As we read the story, the older ones knew what was coming, but you should have seen his face when he realized we were reading about his song.

I don’t know what attracted him to this hymn over all others, perhaps the descant part that the boys get to sing on their own. But every time he’s allowed to pick a song for our morning worship, we know what it will be – It is Well with My Soul by Horatio Spafford. Mr. Spafford wrote this song in 1873 after his 4 daughters were drowned at sea, and his wife nearly so.

I can relate to this song too. In 1990 we lost  our 5th daughter, only 3 hours after birth. My Lord was truly with me and granted a “peace that passes all understanding.” Although I could not understand how anyone could get through such without God, it truly was “well with my soul.”

It is Well with My Soul

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Refrain (after each verse)
It is well, with my soul, It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

SDG,
Lisa