Mar. 21 | Tehillah, to Worship with a New Song
Psalm 34:1, “I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise [tehillah] will always be on my lips.”
Do you like to sing? I have never met a person yet that doesn't like to sing. Certainly, many people don’t like to sing in public or have people hear them, but I think everyone likes to sing down deep inside. They will especially sing when their favorite song is on and nobody is around. God designed our singing to have a special relationship with our mind and body.
When we sing, we calm our mind, release stress and bring emotional healing to our lives.
My children have taught me that singing is as natural to human nature as breathing. They love to not only sing the songs we teach them, but they love to make up their own songs. They enjoy singing about God, what they’ve learned throughout the day and totally random things like their favorite food. They always have a song in their heart. It is so precious to hear them sing. May we all be like children in the Kingdom of God and have a song in our heart about the exaltation of our God.
The Hebrew word David used for praise in the above psalm is “tehillah” which literally means, “song of praise.” David is declaring that God’s song of praise (tehillah) will always be on his lips. As a matter of fact, the word “psalm” actually means “song.” Therefore, David not only loved to sing, but he wrote his own songs, too. You can think of the book of psalms as a book of songs. Some people in the church wrongly believe that the psalms were only written to be read as poetry. But the most notable application of the psalms was to be sung with instruments. Consider the notes found before Psalm 58, “For the director of music. To the tune of ‘Do Not Destroy.’ Of David.”
There are many ways you can do this form of prayer to God as worship and praise. You can sing songs karaoke style with your favorite worship band with your stereo or headphones. You can make up your own songs in your prayer time and sing them out loud to God, like David and many of the prophets did. Or you can sing at church with the band and singers. I would recommend not just singing at church, but finding ways to sing throughout the day. At this season in my life, I like to end each day with a prayer walk where I incorporate singing songs that I’ve memorized. I mostly like the old hymns because they are easy to sing without a band and are packed with great theology. Some of my favorite hymns are; Be Thou My Vision, I Surrender, The Doxology and Oh, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing. Here is one of my favorite verses I like to sing from Be Thou My Vision by Dallan Forgaill, “Be thou my vision oh Lord of my heart, naught be all else to me save that thou art, thou my best thought by day or by night, waking or sleeping thy presence my light.”
When you sing and exalt God in praise and worship, He will fill your heart with His presence. You will find this saying is true, “When the praises go up, the blessings come down!” (Psalm 67:5-7). Don’t wait. Start singing right now and make a joyful noise to the Lord because He loves to hear you sing to Him.
Reflection
Action
- Make time today to sing songs to God. Consider singing and playing the songs others have written, like hymns or sing along with your music player.
- In your time of singing, ask the Holy Spirit to give you words to sing a new song from your heart. I usually start by just singing a new song in the melody of a song I already know.
- Whenever you gather with the church, come ready to sing with passion to help encourage others who may be shy or don’t understand the power of singing songs to God.