Thankful November Day 11

Since the early church, singing praises to God has been a part of a typical worship service. In the years since then there has been dark times when the act of congregational singing was almost non-existent in many churches. There has also been times of "revival" for lack of a better word, in the area of hymn writing. I'm so thankful for those old hymns that I grew up singing that are packed with truths about our God and his Word! Songs like "Amazing Grace", "It is well with my soul", "What a friend we have in Jesus" are just a few that I want my children to know. It's such a helpful way to ingrain good theology into our thinking, it's also a wonderful way to both praise God and encourage our own hearts. I don't know a lot but I feel like in my younger years we were in one of those "darker" (or maybe "dry" is a better word) times when it came to gifted people writing songs that communicate good theology and as a result lift our hearts in praise to God. But in the past few years it seems like we've entered another one of those "revival times". I just feel like we've recently been blessed with several very gifted people or groups of people that are writing songs packed with encouraging truths! Just a couple of our favorites are Keith and Kristyn Getty and Enfield ( if you don't know who they are, look them up on YouTube, I highly recommend them! :)

 So what exactly am I thankful for? Well, it's rather late and I'm having trouble getting my brain to spit it out through my fingers in an understandable way. But basically my heart is just so thankful for the wealth of encouragement, conviction, and reminders about God that we have at our finger tips in the form of song. It's everywhere! We have such easy access to it in this electronic age we live in and we need to take advantage of it! We need to keep those old Hymns alive and we need to encourage each other with these newer songs! God has blessed us greatly with all of them!
So! dust off that hymnal on your shelf, sit down and read those theology packed hymns like "Come Thou Fount","Wonderful Grace of Jesus", "How great Thou art", or "One Day!" as part of your time with the Lord. Then go open itunes or youtube and fill your house with wonderfully encouraging songs like "Finally Home", "Soon", and "You have been raised."And thank God with me that He gave us the gift of encouragement through songs of truth!