Women’s Connect Devotional March 2022
Ladies, take a moment and enjoy this wonderful devotional written by Abbey Sindt. Let’s continue to hide God’s Word in our hearts and meditate upon it often so we can grow in our knowledge of the Lord and deepen our relationship with Him. Thank you, Abbey, for this amazing reminder and encouragement!
Have you ever been going along, minding your own business when a song enters your head? I’m not talking about a song you recently heard in the store or that annoying song you hate but can’t stop hearing in your mind. I’m talking about when randomly, completely out of the blue, suddenly a song is stuck in your head. The neatest part of this strange occurrence is when it is a song full of God’s Word. Maybe some words heard or a situation you encountered made you think of the lyrics. Maybe the melody just plays in your head unexpectedly. This happened to me the other day when I suddenly heard Christy Nockle’s adaptation of “A Mighty Fortress” in my mind over and over. I found myself singing it as I did laundry and went to work. This is no accident, my friends.
Psalm 119:11 says, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” The translation I learned when I was little used the word “hidden”. If something is hidden, there is the implication that it can then be found. Often it is found at the most perfect moment. Psalm 37:31 talks about the righteous person, “The law of his God is in his heart; his steps do not slip.” The book of Psalm is not the only place we see this concept of hiding God’s Word inside us though. In Deuteronomy 6:5-7 God speaks through Moses saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” In this passage, God directly ties loving Him with all we are to having His words in our hearts – teaching them to our children, and having them at the top of our minds and tongues in all we do.
Music allows us the special combination of praising God with melodies and capturing the truth of His Word. Studies have shown the powerful way our minds memorize songs. The left side of our brain works to recognize and interpret the words of a song, while the right side of our brain works to capture the ebb and flow of the music. Other studies show the effectiveness of using music for memorization. That’s what the Psalms were, after all…God’s Word in melody. This is no accident, my friends.
Moms, let me encourage you for a moment. You want your children to memorize Scripture? Sing it! I once listened to an interview of Tim Tebow’s mom describing how she used to make up songs using Bible verses and sing them to her children. She nearly broke out in tears describing how one night her grandchildren spent the night at her house and sang one of those very songs to her before bedtime. She didn’t even know her children still remembered those songs, let alone the fact that they had passed them down.
I can attest to this myself. Don’t ask me to SAY the fruit of the Spirit…I can only SING it in the melody I learned as a little girl. (Seriously, ask me and I’ll sing it to you!) When my fear of flying gets the best of me during a turbulent moment, I am 100% honestly singing the children’s version I learned of Psalm 56:3-4 in my head as a grown woman. My parents believed in this method and I am reaping the benefits to this day. (The late 80’s/early 90’s Psalty’s Singing Songbook is how I learned, but I’m sure there are much less dated songs these days!)
Young or experienced, all of us can benefit from this unique way of hearing God’s Word and hiding it in our hearts. What song full of God’s truth has He brought to your mind today? Each day can bring something new…and this is no accident, my friends!
See below to reference the article and songs that inspired this quick devotional thought.
The song:
The kids music:
