The Song Of The Righteous...

I would like to dedicate this post to my favorite church songs, both in the main Hymn Book we use, and in the Children's Songbook. In the Doctrine and Covenants 25:12 it says, "For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads." There are several songs/hymns that I wanted to go over because of the power in their messages. Hopefully, I can catch some of the full meaning that some of these songs/hymns have.


We'll start off with the Children's Songbook. I have been playing the songs out of this book recently and have discovered a few hidden meanings in some of the songs. "'Give,' Said The Little Stream" is a popular favorite among primary kids. Of course, even by the title, you can tell it is about giving, but one of the lines in there says "I'm small, I know, but wherever I go, the grass grows greener still." What a positive attitude that song portrays. I think it's great that within that simple Primary song, there is a deeper meaning that tells us all that we need to see the better side of things.

Another song is called "Dare To Do Right" in which the first line says, "Dare to do right! Dare to be true!" I listened to a talk by John Bytheway recently and he talked about a newspaper comic that had a thousand sheep running one way, with only one sheep trying to run through them, going the opposite way. He said that that is what the youth of our church is doing today. The world is going one way, and we, as individuals, are fighting the world, going another way, a "more excellent way" you might say.

Going to the main Hymn Book we use, we can look at the hymn "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy." The first verse says "Brightly beams our Father's mercy from his lighthouse evermore. But to us he gives the keeping of the lights along the shore. Let the lower lights be burning; send a gleam across the wave. Some poor fainting, struggling seaman, you may rescue, you may save." Think of the imagery that this creates. We have our Heavenly Father as our main lighthouse, the big light we need to be guided by. He gives us the responsibility to use the light that all of us have inside ourselves, to point others who are out there, to Him. With our "lower lights," we're sending a gleam, or a shimmer, of the Spirit and truth, their way to help guide them to their safe destination.

There are many more hymns that have a deeper message behind them. I encourage everyone to look at a hymn for yourself and find the deeper message. I have a testimony that, like the scripture mentioned above, those hymns, if you sing them in a congregation or in your heart, will be answered just like a normal prayer.