Love to hear from and know who is listening
Calming the Soul
Music has a powerful influence on human beings. It can boost memory, build endurance, lighten your mood, reduce anxiety and depression, stave off fatigue, improve your response to pain, and help you work out more effectively. Music can also bring back powerful memories and emotions. Music is present in every part of our lives. Children learn the alphabet through a song. Music can even influence your spending habits, shopping malls and restaurants you visit are rarely silent. My wife claims she learned the preamble to our constitution through a song she heard on a Saturday morning cartoon as a child called “School House Rock.”
Music has a very important role in worship as well. God can be glorified by music and peoples spirits can be uplifted by a pleasing melody. Through congregational singing Christian faith is not only expressed; to a very real degree it is learned. Since people tend to remember the theology they sing more than the theology that is preached, sorry preachers! Hymns, both ancient and modern, increase knowledge and vocabulary, rehearse the biblical story, and teach of the nature and the almighty acts of God. Music is essential for a Christians growth in faith.
According to the Book of Samuel, an “evil spirit” plagued King Saul, making him agitated and fearful of persecution. Because music was thought to have a therapeutic effect, the king summoned the hero and warrior David, who was renowned for his skill with the harp.
1 Samuel 16: 14, 17-18, 23 14 Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. 17 So Saul said to his attendants, “Find someone who plays well and bring him to me.” 18 One of the servants answered, “I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the Lord is with him.” 23 Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.
This is one amazing example of what music can make do to a person. Today, we are bombarded with music that is full of subliminal messages that encourages drugs, fornication, vices, etc. And as we listen to this kind of music, those messages that are usually hidden in the upbeat bass or catchy melody are being burned into our subconscious minds slowly but surely. This is not what God wants us to have. Just like the music that the David’s harp produces, our music should be a comfort for the soul, a source of peace for the mind and a warm blanket of encouragement for the heart. As believers today, let us take some time to reflect what kind of music are we listening to in our lives?
Our faith in God should result to a life that can provide comfort to other people especially those that are going through deep hurts and troubles. To give comfort to others means to stand in the situation, walk a mile in their shoes. Don’t judge or criticize, but rather give hope and love to the person who needs it. As the music of David’s Harp comforted the distressed King Saul, let the music of our lives through what we say or do also give comfort to those who are facing their own tormenting spirit.
