The Magic of Music
"My heart, O God, is steadfast, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make music. Awake, my soul! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn."
Psalm 57:7-8, NIV
Music was my first love. Although I was a terrible classical student throughout my entire childhood, there are few things that are more wonderful to me than plucking a guitar or sitting down at a piano. (There are also only a few things worse than picking up a violin after many years and realizing that your dexterity has gone, and you now sound more like a wailing tom cat than the musician you once were.) This also happened to me last week!
Numerous scientific and psychological studies have shown that music can lift our moods, combat depression, improve blood flow, lower levels of stress-related hormones, such as cortisol, and ease pain. Music can improve the outcomes for patients after surgery; it can help people with dementia find words; it can let us access parts of ourselves that we have kept shut away; and, it can stir up memories.
Music is powerful, and scripture is full of mentions of it. In these verses, the Psalmist is in a dark place. Before these verses, he writes of pits and arrows, of spears and of lions. He is, through song, willing his heart to be steadfast and for the night of his circumstance to break.
We all worship, and I think music is a big part of it. Have you ever noticed people at a concert: all in, hands raised, singing along? It stirs something in us. Have you watched Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde” along with a silent, captivated audience? Think about late at night when you are camping and someone with a guitar appears. People will automatically sing along to songs, such as John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” That is when a quiet, perfect, mystical magic moment happens. It is worship – even if not always correctly directed toward God or quite how God might have intended – yet, it often reveals so much of who God is.
Music can bring breakthroughs. It leads us to God without our minds or other distractions getting in the way.
Today, listen to a hymn, anthem or melody that stirs you and thank God for it. Reminisce on its meaning or significance. Ask God to give you a heart that sings today so, whatever you face, your heart might be steadfast, encouraged by the song within it.
