Sing them over again to me,
Wonderful words of life,
Let me more of their beauty see,
Wonderful words of life;
Words of life and beauty
Teach me faith and duty.

    Refrain:
    Beautiful words, wonderful words,
    Wonderful words of life;
    Beautiful words, wonderful words,
    Wonderful words of life.

Do these words ring a bell? They are from a great hymn that at least some of you may have sung at least once in your lifetime 🙂

You may wish to listen to the hymn in its entirety here  or simply read the rest of the lyrics.

Clearly, the “beautiful” and “wonderful” words to which the hymn refers are the Word of God recorded for us in the Bible.

But, something happened last night in Toronto that offered a revelation on how the Holy Spirit gets these words into our spirit so they can teach us “faith and duty.”

Sulojana and I were at a gathering of Tamil-speaking Christians whose roots are in the Church of South India. We had an opportunity to meet and greet the present Moderator, Rt. Rev. Dr. G. Devakadasham and receive words of counsel and blessing from him.

We began the evening with a time of Praise and Worship—a blend of Tamil hymns and contemporary songs in English.

As we started singing, Sulojana and I were both amazed at how words we had not sung for 30 plus years started coming back to us. Even though we had a song sheet in front of us, for some of those songs at least, it was unnecessary.

As a matter of fact, in one of the Tamil hymns, the text had been altered slightly and no one was more surprised than me when I was able to spot it 🙂

It reminded me of how we sing the “wonderful words of life” into our spirits. Over and over again.

The hymn in question is based on Luke 24:29, where the disciples on the road to Emmaus say to Jesus: “Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.”
(For the benefit of our Tamil-speaking DWOD subscribers, I am referring to: “Varum Ayah, Pothahareh” by Vedanayagam Sastriar)

It dawned on me that songs such as this which are based on Scripture are a way in which we sing our faith. And, since we sing them repeatedly, we tend to remember them well. They come back to us even decades down the road.

Today, I am sensing the Lord wanting me to encourage you to sing those “beautiful words of life” in addition to reading them straight out of the Bible.

One habit that Sulojana and I have developed is to listen to praise and worship songs as we are driving and often sing along and worship the Lord.

On more than one occasion, those words we sang have come back to our memory exactly when we needed them…and by singing them one more time, we have seen healing, freedom and peace come—to us and to those receiving ministry through us.

Has this ever happened to you? Please share your experiences with the rest of your DWOD family.