And yet, and yet…

As our staff is reading through the Bible in a Year, I ran across a Psalm I’ve read several times before: Psalm 136. If you’re not familiar, it’s the psalm that has “…for his steadfast love endures forever” in every verse.

I’d like to insert here some kind of super-spiritual statement about how I felt reading Psalm 136, but let’s be real. It’s really repetitive. And frankly as I’m flat reading the black and white on the page, my mind kept bouncing around on various different things.

I know, I’m a super pious guy.

But seriously, as I was lurching through my reading of the psalm I turned on my study playlist. [It’s called Matt’s Focus Blend, and I think I have it set to public on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ip5z5uHyN3vaBMwgHjUKB?si=0ce878c5d0514c68] All of a sudden, my lurching began to have rhythm. That which was repetitive began to soothe.

Instead of lines on a chalkboard, the Psalm became the gentle lapping of the waves on the beach. Instead of a somnambulant chant, it became the breath of a loved one. Instead of walking through a grey street, it became the constancy of the sunrise.

When music entered into the lyric, it was no longer repetitive: it was true.

I had a similar experience this past Sunday when I saw my daughter making notes during the sermon. But instead of just filling blanks she started making illustrations, drawing out the story on the pad. It had some comical aspects, but it breathed life into the outline.

It’s one thing to speed read the Scripture. It’s one thing to stumble through the Scripture. It’s one thing to charge Scripture head on like a textbook.

It’s another thing to sing the Scripture. It’s another thing to illuminate the Scripture. It’s another thing to experience the heart in the text.

As much as we value novelty and speed and efficiency and dopamine hits in our informational minds, we need the constancy. In all the cotton candy of the digital world, we need the solid truth. And in fact, in a subconscious way we crave it.

We crave knowing what steadfast love is. Our attempts to control and manipulate reality to our comfort is a cry for something we can count on in this life. Our splashing around in the ocean of the metamodern digisphere is really a searching for a horizon, a north star.

We need to know it’s going to be OK.

Friend, the Lord is your north star. In a world and history wracked with change and terror, he is steadfast. In a world devoid of meaning, he is beauty. Though we may be faithless, he is as faithful as the tide.

Ever reaching, ever drawing.

If you find yourself in times of dryness, maybe it’s time to stop speed reading and to sing a little bit. Maybe God can use the art of Scripture to rush in to your heart instead of just filling your brain. Maybe the rush of joy, sadness, repentance, growth, purpose, creation, inquisitiveness is already lapping at your heart. What if the answers to your longing, your need, and your doubt were always there, hidden behind the black and white ink.

Maybe Jesus was singing for us the whole time.

Signs and wonders y’all.

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.
² Give thanks to the God of gods,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.
³ Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
    for his steadfast love endures forever…

…It is he who remembered us in our low estate,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
²⁴ and rescued us from our foes,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
²⁵ he who gives food to all flesh,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.

²⁶ Give thanks to the God of heaven,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.

Psalm 136: 1-3; 23-26