girl talk

Singing Grace

Recently when my granddaughter, Caly, heard a snippet from the great hymn “Come, Thou Fount of Blessing,” she firmly announced: “That’s Pop-Pop’s song!”

Why does this little two-year-old think her grandpa is the sole possessor of that beloved song? It’s because when Pop-Pop is around, she is accustomed to hearing him belt out the refrain:

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

He sings it fervently. He sings it often. It’s obvious that regularly singing the words to this hymn has become a useful way for him to focus his heart on the Savior in the daily fight with indwelling sin.

My husband is not the only who has a favorite hymn to help him fix his eyes on Jesus. I once read that “when Hudson Taylor was told about missionaries in his charge being in trouble, he was heard soon after whistling his favorite hymn, ‘Jesus I Am Resting.’”

Singing hymns or other songs of Scripture is a way to battle our sin, cast our cares, and make our souls happy in God. As it says in Colossians 3:16: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” 

I want to sing more, because this command to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs is a means of grace to help me turn my heart to God in repentance, trust, gratitude and hope.

That’s why I love to hear CJ sing--not because of his extraordinary voice (Sorry, Dear, you are extraordinary in every other way!)--but because his singing reminds me to sing.

That’s what I hope this little post will do for you too: remind you to sing.

A Tuesday Holiday

There is nothing special about today. It is not a holiday. It’s not my birthday or wedding anniversary. I am not celebrating any particular milestone in my life. It’s simply another ordinary day, filled with the usual commonplace tasks: cooking, cleaning, laundry, caring for the needs of my family….

And yet author Samuel Ward has reminded me that though ordinary, this day should be like a holiday, a celebration. I should have a Christmas-like spirit on this rainy September day, because, as Mr. Ward writes:

“It is sad to see a Christian pursuing joy in coarse and earthly pleasures when he has more noble and angelical delights, second only in degree and manner of enjoyment to heaven itself. Our faith takes us to the third heaven. We roll and tumble our souls in beds of roses, that is, our meditations of justification, sanctification, and salvation through Christ. No day should pass without these enjoyments. Should not our soul have her due drinks, breakfasts, meals, snacks, and desserts, as well as our body? Cannot such meditations make pleasant work of our daily tasks? They would make time pass by like a boat with full wind and tide, needing no oars. They would make all of our days like holidays and celebrations.” (HT: Tony Reinke)

As we “roll and tumble our souls in beds of roses, that is, our meditations of justification, sanctification, and salvation through Christ,” it makes pleasant work of our daily tasks and turns the most ordinary days into holidays.

Won’t you celebrate with me today?

Wise Words from a Pastor

As girltalk blog regulars know, I live on the other side of the great Potomac River from the rest of my family. Thankfully, all I have to do is drive across the American Legion Bridge to see them, which I do, with Jack in tow, at least once a week. (Can you sing, “Over the river and through the woods to MomMom’s house we go”?)

My husband Steve and I are blessed to be a part of Sovereign Grace Church of Fairfax (Virginia) where our senior pastor is a man named Mark Mullery. Mark and his wife Lesley are dear friends of ours, and Mark is an exceptional teacher of God’s Word who often speaks at Sovereign Grace Ministries conferences and teaches hermeneutics to the Pastors’ College students. Each year, at our church’s annual banquet to honor the small group leaders, Mark treats us to a brief, personal meditation on God’s Word.  It’s always memorable.

This year’s meditation was entitled “Come In” from Hebrews 10:19-22 and Mark has graciously given us permission to make it available to you. I highly recommend saving this for your quiet time. Mark’s words are worth pondering in an unhurried manner. I’ve provided the first paragraph to whet your appetite. Mark writes:

Here’s where I was the other night: felt discouraged, weary, slightly overwhelmed.  My joy-meter was reading in negative numbers. The cause?  No great suffering or trials here, just the everyday experience of looking ahead to the next couple of weeks with a lot to do and not enough time to do it all.  A couple of projects at home, no time to do them.  A teaching assignment to prepare for, but the slots I’d set aside got used up by unexpected meetings.  Teenagers who desire and require lots of conversation, but always after I’m in bed and wanting to be asleep.  Can you relate to this?  I think Pilgrim’s Progress calls this ‘The Slough of Despond.’  God calls it unacceptable.

If you can relate to Mark’s experience, then read on, and allow this wise pastor to pastor you through the “Slough of Despond” to joy and faith in Christ.

A Happy Soul

“Are you consistently keeping your soul happy in God?” It was an unexpected question. If Mark, our pastor and small group leader had asked, “Are you consistently practicing the spiritual disciplines?” I would have given a simple “yes.” But this question required a more thoughtful response. Do I emerge from my quiet time happy? Hmmmm. “In all honesty, I would have to say ‘no.’"

This question that Mark put to our care group several weeks ago was drawn from the personal reflections of nineteenth-century pastor, George Mueller:

“I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished.”

It was easy for my friends to diagnose my lack of joy in God, for it’s a common malady. I had unconsciously “shifted from the gospel of grace” (Col. 1:21-23). My quiet times had become a dreary recounting of all my sins from the previous day, a period of morbid introspection over the cause of those sins, and an anxiety over my lack of progress in mortification. No wonder my soul wasn’t happy!

So I decided to, as my dad says, “restrict my spiritual diet;” to stand squarely on the bedrock of my joy--the glorious truths of the gospel. Because, as our dear friend Mr. Spurgeon writes:

“Here in the cross is where every enemy of joy is overcome: divine wrath, as he becomes a curse for us; real guilt, as he becomes forgiveness for us; lawbreaking, as he becomes righteousness for us; estrangement from God, as he becomes reconciliation for us; slavery to Satan, as he becomes redemption for us; bondage to sin, as he becomes liberation for us; pangs of conscience, as he becomes cleansing for us; death, as he becomes the resurrection for us; hell, as he becomes eternal life for us.”

You know what? Now I come out of my quiet time happier than when I went in! I’m still the greatest sinner I know, but I am a sinner clothed in the righteousness of Christ. And that truth, as it sinks in, permeates my soul with joy.

So how about you, is your soul happy? Is it spin around, laugh out loud, grin ‘till it hurts, happy in God? If not, then come with me to the cross. And gaze awhile.