The Practice of Prayer (6)

Oh, sing to the LORD a new song!
Sing to the LORD, all the earth.
Sing to the LORD, bless His name;
Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.
Declare His glory among the nations,
His wonders among all peoples.
For the LORD is great and greatly to be praised;
He isto be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples areidols,
But the LORD made the heavens.
Honor and majesty are before Him;
Strength and beauty arei n His sanctuary. Psalm 96.1-6

Singing as prayer
It’s too easy to overlook the role of singing in the life of faith, and in particular, as a means of prayer. Most Christians don’t sing unless they’re in the company of other believers during worship. And even then they don’t sing like they mean it. Singing is just this thing Christians do. We put up with singing, but singing isn’t really an integral part of our walk with or work for the Lord. If someone passed a law against singing to the Lord in any context other than worship, most of us wouldn’t have to change our behavior one bit.

Many of the psalms, however, combine singing and prayer into one discipline. Some were written to familiar folk tunes, both so they could be used in worship and be remembered and sung during everyday activities. Paul and Silas appear to have been singing a psalm in the dungeon of that Philippian prison. Jesus and His disciples sang as they left the upper room and headed to the garden, where Jesus would be arrested.

Singing is clearly a form a prayer in the Scriptures, and it is not intended as a discipline to be engaged only during services of worship. One way to enrich your prayer life and to bring more prayer into your daily activities is to include singing to the Lord as part of your practice of prayer. Singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs is an evidence of the filling of the Holy Spirit, Who teaches us to pray because we don’t know how to pray as we ought (Eph. 5.18-21).

So if it pleases the Spirit to use songs to teach us to pray, it should please us, in seeking to improve our prayers, to include singing to the Lord as part of our practice of prayer.

The benefits of singing
I suppose there are many reasons why people don’t sing any more than they do. They think they don’t have a good voice. They can’t carry a tune. Don’t know all the words. Just don’t think about it much. Whatever.

But there are some very good reasons to sing, and most people are not aware of these. Or if they are, they don’t credit them very much.

But consider: Singing is an excellent way of embedding important matters in your long-term memory. When God wanted the people of Israel to remember all the important details of His love for them, His salvation, their corruption, His discipline and promises, and the broad scope of His covenant, He instructed Moses to write a song, and all the people to learn it (Deut. 31, 32).

Singing can be useful in helping to gain a clear and compelling, long-term vision of God’s faithfulness and greatness (cf. Pss. 68, 104, 126, etc.).

Singing exercises all three of the components of the soul: With the mind we recall words and the images associated with them; with the heart we experience the mood or affection of any particular song; and with the conscience we preserve singing as an important part of the life of prayer. In addition, singing exercises our bodily strength and engages words and melodies to declare our faith and hope.

Singing can lift us up and carry us above untoward circumstances or conditions, as Paul and Silas understood. Singing reinforces our calling to obey God, Who commands us over and over in His Word to sing songs of praise and thanks to Him. Singing during the daily moments of our lives can train us to sing more robustly and sincerely when we gather together for public worship.

Some guidelines
So how can you make singing more a part of your life of prayer with the Lord? A few brief suggestions: First, learn to sing psalms or hymns or spiritual songs that are in the form of prayers. Then include one of these as part of your prayers every day.

Second, commit to learning all the stanzas of a prayer song by heart. Write them down and practice singing them throughout the day, tuning your heart for prayer and paying careful attention to the words as you sing, so that your singing becomes part of your prayer life during the day.

Finally, sing whenever you have the opportunity and are alone – as when you’re driving your car, getting ready for the day, taking a walk, doing the lawn, or simply by yourself at home. The more you sing, especially when you use singing as a way of coming before the Lord in prayer, the more you will stretch your prayer life into your entire day, and discover the pleasure and power of prayer in one of its most important expressions.

For reflection
1.  How much does singing to the Lord factor into your walk with the Lord at this time? How important would you say singing to the Lord is to you?

2.  How important does singing to the Lord seem to be to the Lord? Explain.

3.  Where will you start to begin making singing more a consistent and important part of your life of prayer?

Next steps – Transformation: At our website, subscribe to Crosfigell, our thrice-weekly devotional newsletter. Each issue contains an excerpt for singing from the psalms, using familiar hymn tunes. Here’s an excellent way to begin singing to the Lord.

T. M. Moore
Each of our “next steps” exercises is tied into goals and disciplines involved in working your Personal Mission Field. If you have not yet identified your Personal Mission Field, watch the brief video showing you how to get started right away (click here). Learn how to work your Personal Mission Field by finding a friend and signing-up for our Mission Partners Outreach.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.