I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. Psa 104:33

In the last year I have had a few rough times, where I felt Psalm 43 expressed things well. Why are you cast down oh my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Such is the effect of the deep trials and sorrows of life upon one's soul.
However, I have also found the words of Proverbs to be true: "Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad." A good word is medicine - it is balm. Sometimes these come by way of a friend or a sermon. But I have been thinking about another way by which it comes.
Col 3:16 says: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
So one way that God's good word dwells in us is through the singing of spiritual songs. In a parallel verse, Ephesians 18-19 says: ...be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and humns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart... So on top of the word of God dwelling in you, this is also a means of being filled with the Holy Spirit.
I am not surprised to see then that through the low times of the past year, some of the most beautiful rays of light to pierce the darkness of sorrow have come through songs. Songs like Great is Thy Faithfulness, It is Well With My Soul, Crown Him With Many Crowns - songs that remind me of the trustworthiness of our high and awesome God - songs that speak a good word to my anxious soul and make me glad.
I think back to my college days when I would make the four hour drive to and from my Alma Mater by myself. During those drives I would have the sweetest of times with the Lord. I think a large part of that was because I would sing unabashedly. I think I should not let the absence of that kind of a drive stop me from singing joyfully to the Lord.

What have I been up to?

I was able to return this summer to Annapolis, Maryland, where I spent two years after college working as a mechanical engineer. For the summer, I am a pastoral intern at the church I attended here. What does that entail? A bunch of things I love to do! My favorite of which is preparing to preach, and then actually preaching. Now, I only get to preach one time this summer (August 3rd - 6:30 pm), but I'm preaching from Revelation, which means I have a lot of learning to do (having never studied it in depth before). So I have spent a significant amount of time reading and thinking about Revelation. Immersing myself in the word is sooo sweet. I leave the office sometimes with my view of the Lamb who sits on the throne enlarged, and reminded of the weight of eternity. This sort of study of the word is a large part of why I love the idea of being a pastor. Of course, these things are meant to be preached! I look forward to August 3rd.
I also spend alot of time preparing for Sunday school. I'm teaching a course that involves some heavy duty theology on the Doctrine of God. I doubt I'm doing it justice, but I am learning alot as I go. I talk to my good friend (and a pastor here) Tom Wenger about this material all the time, and learn a ton. Tom is a motivation to me to be assiduous in my theological studies.
I also take a fair amount of time throughout the week to meet with other men in the college/career group to spur each other on and build fellowship. Furthermore, I get to tag along on all sorts of great pastoral activities - session meetings, committee meetings, and hopefully some visitations (hospital/shut in) coming up. I have great debrief times with the Senior Pastor (Bruce O'neil) about these things. I've learned alot from that man too.
I'm excited for what is ahead. The summer is flying by quickly though!