The Lord is my Shepherd - Psalm 23

The title of this article is a phrase which is found twice in the Holy Bible, in Psalm 23.6 and Psalm 27.4. It is amazing that when we are looking forward we think of years, for example Luke 12.19: “And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry’”, but when we are looking back over the landscape of life we think of days that stand out in our memories. When the Pharaoh of Egypt asked the aged Jacob, “How old art thou?” his response was, “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage” Genesis 47.8,9.

Perhaps now you are recalling some of the days of your life: the day you started school, the day you left school, the day you were married, the day you graduated from university; of course none of us remembers the first day of our life and eventually the last day will arrive for “life at best is very brief”. There have been happy days, of laughter, and sad days, of crying. There are days we recall with great joy and others are painful as we remember the passing of loved ones which left an aching void in our lives. What a variety of days we experience in a lifetime: days of success and applause, and days of failure and embarrassment. Life is the aggregate of all these days and God has numbered our days and set bounds to our fleeting lifetime. We too are advised to “number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” Psalm 90.12. Let us never forget that we will not be here forever; for there is “a time to be born, and a time to die” Ecclesiastes 3.2.

Thankyou for the music

All photos courtesy of Unsplash

Music and songs create passion in our hearts and evoke vivid memories. Some of these memories are good some are sad!

Songs are very emotive and help us store memories. A very effective method of learning is linked to the rhythm in repeating words that somehow glues the words or the facts to our minds. Most of us didn’t necessarily enjoy it but we often learned facts or figures (times tables for example) by musical rhythm. If you were dragged off to Sunday School (maybe you loved going) you may remember learning bible verses, for example  “For God so loved the world that..” or “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and ..”or maybe “Honour your Father and your Mother”. All of this was to get some important facts from the bible into your young mind for the purpose of living life and one day meeting God.   

If I was asked to quote some great piece of literature I would struggle but if you whistled a tune of some popular song I often amaze myself by my ability to recall the words. Maybe you do this as well. Music has a powerful effect on our memories in this respect.