God speaks to us in many ways. He speaks foremost though His son’s Word. (Hebrews 1:2). Sometimes He speaks through another person, oftentimes if they are speaking of a verse themselves. He speaks through circumstances, such as through tragedy or chastisement. (James 1:2-5). Personally, I enjoy the song service at church or on the radio in listening to traditional hymns. (Ephesians 5:19). Most hymns are based on scripture, either directly or paraphrased. Listening to these hymns gives me an opportunity to meditate on them all day, (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2).
Sometimes I hear a hymn playing in the background of my dreams as I slumber at night. When I wake up, the song and its lyrics are strongly in my head, and I wake up humming. Aside from the fact that it is a joy to wake up with thoughts of Jesus on my mind, and gentle words that uplift and exalt Him, I also enjoy when these things happen for another reason.
I take it as a prompt to investigate what the Spirit wants to say. Therefore I go to my computer and bring up YouTube and listen to the song that was in my head, and read and sing the lyrics. Then I pray for the Spirit to open me up to a deeper understanding of the practical application of what He wants from me. Sometimes as I read a devotional or a bible chapter that day, or even a year later, the Spirit will then make a connection. It is how He grows us. It took me a long time to learn to pay attention to these prompts. It is the way He conforms us to His thoughts. (Romans 12:2).
So today I was blessed with the hymn “I Surrender All” in my head as I awoke. I got up and I listened to it on YouTube. I thought about the word surrender in relation to my life with Jesus. I prayed, asking Jesus to root out areas where I have not surrendered, where I would be holding onto flesh and selfishness. I hummed it as I made French Toast for breakfast. I then let the day begin and other thoughts come into my head as the more pragmatic things of the day crowded out the spiritual thoughts. ‘Change the sheets’, ‘it’s a nice day I think I’ll go out and take some fall pictures’, ‘what am I going to put in the Prophecy Newsletter today?’ And so on. But before I got up to do these things I decided to put on Pandora radio so I could listen to it as I made the bed and went about the morning chores.
I have had a computer problem for the last two weeks and only got my laptop back from repair a few days ago. I haven’t used Pandora for all that time.
I have ten stations. The way Pandora works is that the last station I’ve left it on will begin playing a mix of songs related to the theme I’d chosen. There is an endless amount of songs on each station, I can listen all day and rarely is one repeated. I brought the station up and pushed back my chair to start chores. The first song was “I SURRENDER ALL.”
I cried in awe and humility. I love how the Spirit works.
How has He been speaking to you lately?
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