I never set out to memorize worship songs. It was just the natural byproduct of growing up in a Christian family. Everywhere our family went, there was worship music playing. At Sunday morning services; at Sunday evening services; at youth group; at Bible Camp; in the car. There was no escaping it, and at some point, my brain just started to retain all of the different melodies and lyrics.
I didn’t ever give much thought to the benefit of knowing so many worship songs. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I began to recognize what a great privilege it was. It started with my first son being born.
He was the first baby I had ever had anything to do with. From day one I felt lost as to how to interact with him. I didn’t know how to talk to him. I didn’t have too many ideas about how to comfort him. But I knew how to sing (though not well), so I did that. Night after night I would sit in a lazy boy and sing to him until he fell asleep. It didn’t feel right to sing Blink 182 songs to him, or Linkin Park’s greatest hits, so I sang songs from that worship catalogue stored away in the back of my mind.
As he turned from baby to a toddler, he eventually started asking me to sing certain worship songs again. He had his favourites. Then as he went from a toddler to a little boy, he started memorizing the songs himself and singing them back to me. I will be honest, I am not sure that there have been any greater moments for me as a dad, than hearing my four-year-old son sing about the grace of Jesus, the love of God and the wonder of the cross.
These days he regularly asks me to sing to him new songs. So, I have become far more intentional about listening to more worship music and worshipping along with it. The result is that I am worshipping God in private more than I ever have and I am being to bring more Christ-centred songs to my son for him to learn.
I have never been more thankful to have had a childhood that was saturated with worship music. Those songs, and all of the new ones getting stored, are gospel treasures in my mind that I can grab at any point, for any occasion, even for bedtime routines.
"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" (Colossians 3:16).