over the past week, i’ve spent my personal devotional time filled with melodies and harmonies. i made a spotify worship set of a few of my current favorite songs & prayed that God would move intentionally in my heart with these songs. each day, i delved into the Word & studied one song’s foundational scripture. having this new light shone on the song & these hours of time spent in my Bible has renewed my heart in beautiful new ways. i “hear” more from the scripture & i also worship harder & deeper when i sing along to the corresponding songs. it’s been a beautiful collision of worship styles.
every morning, after i dropped my daughter off at school, i sat down at the kitchen table with my supplies surrounding me & my bible. i hit play on my spotify list & prepared my heart & mind to come into the presence of God. each day, one song would speak more to my heart. it would bring tears, or insurmountable joy, or i would just FEEL God’s love pouring out from the melody. i would listen to the song once more & write down a handful of lines that really inspired me. sometimes it was the chorus, but sometimes it was one unsuspecting line in the middle of a verse. then i sifted through my supplies & the creative fun began!
some days i would know a verse right off the bat that would correspond with the lyrics of the song. other days i would use my trusty ol’ pal, google. it’s easy to find a verse this way — for example, i simply typed in “you can have everything + bible verse” and searched through the results until i found exactly what i wanted to use. i also wanted to make sure i had a full page of empty margin in my bible for that particular verse, so i could fit everything in. if my first choice had already been studied & journaled, i needed to go back to the search results & find a different verse.
music has always been a huge part of my personal worship. it has been such a treasure to include these beautifully written lyrics in my own bible margins. when i revisit the scripture down the road, i’ll have a secondary layer of worship with which to praise God! i have plenty more songs to fill in over the coming months, feel free to follow & share my #worshipcollision journey on instagram!
Rock out!!! So inspiring!! Thank you for sharing your process and your pages and your heart!! Love!!
very cool – love the art – thank you for sharing your picks and music. Is is a totally new thing to me and I love it
Awesome!!! Enjoy Shirta!!!!
You would love Michelle Nezatt’s site. She does podcasts and scripture memory, matching songs and verses.
Oh I will have to check that out! Thank you!
I love this idea of having a worship song push you towards reading the scripture. I remember going to Sunday School (the older class) and when we didn’t know which scriptures God wanted us to read we would just let our Bibles fall open at a page! But this idea of worship is just speaking to me because I love, love, love listening to worship music!!!
http://www.quietyoursoul.co.uk
Hi Effie, just discovered your blog this morning. Thank you for sharing your self, your soul, and your inspiration. I look forward to following you! I, too, struggle with making quiet time with God a daily part of my life; thanks for helping with this. Blessings!
I started my morning with this inspiration, April. Thank you so much! I very often start my mornings with music, asking God to speak to me through the random choices on the radio. He always does. Beautiful pages!
I have just discovered this kind of Bible journaling. I have always used song to direct my worship…but can’t wait to add art to the mix. Thank you for your inspiration. I keep a list of my current “soul songs”. Fix My Eyes is on of my big faves right now. It is praise, conviction and His power just waiting to be plugged into our daily lives. Beautiful journaling and thank you for sharing. <3
I love this idea!! There are some GREAT worship songs out there right now, and how amazing to add them to the margins of the journaling bible. A few of my current songs on repeat are “Because He Lived” by Matt Maher and “Greater” by MercyMe.