Let Everything that Has Breath...Praise the Lord!

What do you listen to first thing in the morning?

What is the last thing you listen to before going to sleep?

Read what David (via the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) instructs us to do:

Psalm 150

A Psalm of Praise.

    ¹Praise the LORD!
         Praise God in His sanctuary;
         Praise Him in His mighty expanse.
    ²Praise Him for His mighty deeds;
         Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.
    ³Praise Him with trumpet sound;
         Praise Him with harp and lyre.
    ⁴Praise Him with timbrel and dancing;
         Praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe.
    ⁵Praise Him with loud cymbals;
         Praise Him with resounding cymbals.
    ⁶Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
         Praise the LORD!

 

Ever have one of those "duh!" moments!?  I did today!!!  After reading the Blog below, in my heart I was like, what a great idea!  Why haven't I done this before?  Frank and I LOVE music.  And, we LOVE the Lord God Almighty!  What a great way to start/end our day!!!

 

Won't you join me with a little experiment?  Let's take the next 7 days (or, if you want, start on Sunday)...and start and end your day listening to Christian music.  If you don't have David Crowder Band CDs, go right now....(what are you waiting for!? go!)...download, upload, purchase, borrow, copy, etc.  Or, I highly recommend Chris Tomlin, Mercy Me, Casting Crowns, Toby Mac (for you uppitybeat-y people), Jeremy Camp, 4Him, Philips-Craig&Dean to start and finish your day!

 

After the 7 days, let me know how you did.  What you liked? What you didn't like?  Notice anything different?  Let me know!!!

 

A Youth Pastor friend of ours has instituted the policy that on all Youth trips, they only listen to Christian music.  I like that policy!  I do believe Frank and I will institute that policy with our Youth Group!  After all, that may be the only time teens hear Christian music, I mean, right!?

 

Also, just a side note regarding music...did you know that if you listen to Classical music, it improves brain function and memory retention?  Google it.  Seriously!

 

Read on...and, let me know if you will join me with this experiment!

 

The following is from "Hmmmm...Jonathan's Blog (found here) http://blog.thesource4ym.com/archive/2010/10/22/crowder-shines.aspx

 

Crowder Shines

I don't know if David Crowder can even fathom the amazing impact he has had on worship in the 21st century. He's not only filled arenas with jumping young people lifting their hands to God and rocked churches across the continent... he's given believers a tune to hum throughout the day. He's provided 'ammo' for worship.

I can remember the first time my wife heard the words to Everything Glorious and came in to me, "Jonathan, have you heard this?"... I think I teared up. A bunch of us were dialoguing about lyrics of today's music in the comment section of my blog about pop music earlier this week, and I mentioned, in a world where young girls constantly look in the mirror and think, "I'm ugly," Crowder provides a song that says:

You make everything glorious

And I am Yours

What does that make me?

So powerful.

Yesterday I was working on my parenting book in progress (5 chapters due today... I'm done with 6. Yeah!!!) and I was finishing up a chapter on "creating guidelines" in our homes. I listed some of my guidelines, one of which had to do with starting and ending the day with Christian music.

This has been an interesting experience in my house. We, like most people, enjoy secular music (The Fray, John Mayer, Five for Fighting...). And we allow secular music in our house that doesn't distract us from our relationship with God (The Fray and Five for Fighting are great... Mayer is an interesting one...). But we've also added this guideline of only allowing Christian music the first hour in the morning and the last hour at night. My kids were really whiney about it when we first discussed it years ago. But we discussed it and agreed on it as a family... and it's been powerful.

There's nothing like starting and ending your day with God's truth in your ears. If you haven't tried it... I encourage you to.

That said, Crowder is often in my ears. Call me picky or whiney... but I don't like a lot of Christian music. I'm constantly on the lookout for the good stuff. But Crowder, Dutton, Tomlin... and yes, even a few Toby Mac songs have been a huge help.

Yesterday Crowder blogged about a new video they made with a Lite Brite (hilarious description of trying to make the video with over 80 friends all "pegging" to make it happen). I love Crowder's videos. I'll never forget in the last year when I popped on iTunes to look at the Top 10 (something I regularly do) and saw his HOW HE LOVES video at #6 (amazing song and video). I thought, "Rock it Crowder!" So proud of him for making something so quality and so praiseworthy. Well... Crowder's at it again, this time to his song, Shine.

Other people are already blogging about it this morning... I won't repeat. But I encourage you to check out his blog, and check out this video. You'll be humming the song later... I promise. (I downloaded the whole album- I couldn't resist)

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Love in Christ,
--
Mary E.Hickcox
www.CalvaryBaptistSM.org
http://mary-neotes.blogspot.com/