WHAT ARE YOU HIDING?

Allison, 12, and Callie, 6- cousins who cut their teeth on the same scripture songs

I had just finished a good night of sleeping, was awake and in my right mind (well, as right as it ever gets), the terribly hot weather had abated, and the promise of a beautifully refreshing autumn day loomed bountifully all around me, but something was wrong. My insides were disturbed. All the external well-being of the day knocked fruitlessly at the door of my innerds. I was nervous. There was a new unknown about to enter my world whose shadow had me freaked. When I sat still and imagined myself taking on this new necessary challenge--chasing the rabbit wherever it could dare take me so that I could do what I usually do after that exercise, and shrug my shoulders and say, "There! See? No place this rabbit can go is too daunting when I am in the presence of my Deliverer!"-- the outcome surprised me: I was still filled with a thick, foreboding dread. I daresay I was afraid! I thought I had given over this apprehension into the hands of God, but here it was again, stalking me around my secure, well-lit house in the broad daylight. My body was betraying my heart's facade, too: my stomach was queasy, my breathing was shallow, my pulse was elevated, I was sighing audibly.

Then suddenly, there was another one of those announcements I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. Again, it was from the Holy Spirit, and again, it was in the form of a song. Here's what I heard:

"Do not fear, for I am with you.
Do not fear, for I am with you.
Do not fear, for I am with you.
Do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you.
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
I will strengthen you and help you.
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
I will strengthen you and help you...
Isaiah 41:10."

It was not what most would call an out-and-out miracle, even though it had every bit as much power upon me at that moment. These are indeed the words of Isaiah 41:10, but neither the scripture nor the melody was any kind of a newsflash to me. You see, I had sung this song probably hundreds of times in the past seven or eight years. The Holy Spirit was doing for me exactly what Jesus promised He would: "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you... the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you" (John 14:18,24).

It was all I needed to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that He was near me. He was near enough to know intimately this disturbance of my peace. These words had been faithfully hidden in my heart years ago, and just when I needed Him most, God showed up to bring them back to the surface so that I could gain comfort not only from them, but from being assured that He was near. That song had not crossed my mind in weeks, but that didn't hinder God from honoring me with its hidden presence.

Today I want to encourage you to use every method you can find to hide God's Word in your heart. Mnemonic devices, songs, pictures, repetitive recitation... whatever it takes. Hide as much of God's Word in your heart as you can. Most of us who are older know that memorizing doesn't come as easily as it used to; I can still remember hundreds of lines of poems I learned in junior high the night before I had to recite them for a test grade, but it highly taxes my 59-year old brain to remember three scriptures I spent two weeks learning just two months ago...

unless I learned them in a song! I'll bet it's true for most of you, too. Can't you remember way more songs verbatim than you can remember stories or sermons verbatim?

A few years ago I stumbled upon a c.d. called "Seeds of Courage" by a producer called SEEDS (www.seedsmusic.com) that was pure scripture. I pounced on it and bought it for our granddaughter who was three or four at the time because she and her mother love singing together, especially in the car. In no time, Allison and her mom had learned all these songs, so I went hunting and found that there were four more in the set, ("Seeds of Purpose," "Seeds of Praise," "Seeds of Faith," and "The Power of Encouragement"), so this time I bought me a set, too. Since that time, Allison and her mom have shared these with her little brother, Bryson, and I have bought a set for our younger grandkids, Callie, Joel, and Eli. It is a fun way learn scripture and the only way I know of to keep up with their bright, flexible minds in this area.

For a while after finding them, I listened to them exclusively every time I got in my car, whether I was going to the grocery store or on a five-hour trip. I loved what happened as a result. Every time I woke up in the middle of the night, from having consumed my normal Volkswagen-sized watermelon or just to lie awake in a caffeine standoff after a guzzling a movie-sized Coke, invariably one of those scripture songs would be running through my mind. Clear as day I could hear the lyrics and the instrumentation just as I had done in my car dozens of time. What a comfort to know that the very words of God were dwelling there just beneath my consciousness ready to meet and greet me when I woke up! It reminded my of one of my favorite parts of Psalm 139: "How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you." And another of my favorites, Psalm 63, puts it like this : "On my bed I remember you: I think of you through the watches of the night."

And, oh yes, our minds DO dwell, while we are sleeping, on what we have bombarded it with in our waking hours. Haven't you had the experience of studying for hours and hours, maybe days and days for an exam only to have it run through your dreams in some form or another when you finally gave yourself permission to sleep? A few months after discovering the euphoria of waking in the night to all kinds of new scriptures running through my head, I went to babysit our two-year-old granddaughter, Callie, who was big into Dora the Explorer. She wanted to watch Dora for hours on end there for a while, and since her new baby brother, Joel, needed to have the upstairs quiet while he napped, she and I would stay downstairs most of the afternoons with the t.v. and Dora. After a couple of days there, I noticed that my wee-hour t-t trips were no longer accompanied by such wonderful inspiration as 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: "Be thankful always. Praaay continually. Give thanks in all circumstances. Give thanks in all circumstances. For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. This is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." No. Not at all. Now what I heard instead was a duo of a cute little big-eyed Hispanic girl and her boot-clad monkey crooning the strains of "Dora, Dora, Dora, the explorer... Say 'Back pack, back pack'... We did it, we did it, yeah, you know we did it, yeah we did it!" Needless to say, I had to go back into strict training!

"I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." -Psalm 119:11