I can't believe I sang the whooooole thing!

"joy and songs"

Genesis 31:27

The Christmas season is in full swing.  'Course, that's not hard to believe, since it's been in mostly-full swing since September.  But you can hardly hold it back now.

And in church this morning, we sang two Christmas carols, Joy to the World, and Go, Tell it on the Mountain.  And I loved every bit of it.  We went to a church, years ago, where the pastor didn't think Christmas carols should be sung until the week before Christmas, and that's just not enough time to appreciate all that great Christmas music!  So I'm glad we got started on December 1.

One of the things that I love about Christmas carols is singing the whole thing.  All three, or four, or maybe five verses.  We do more "contemporary" stuff in my church; not a lot of hymns.  And if we do sing hymns, they are generally sort of in a medley with something else, so we're just singing the first verse, and maybe the chorus.

It's not a complaint; I love the worship at our church, but I also love how, when I go to sing Christmas carols, all the verses, even the obscure third stanza ~ the one most likely to be omitted for time ~ come right back to me.  After all, I've been singing them for many, many years.  I may have to mumble the first word of a new verse, but then I realize what comes next, I find my place and sing with gusto...

Joy to the World, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him room,

And heaven and nature sing,

And heaven and nature sing,

And heaven, and heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!

Let me their songs employ;

While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found,

Far as the curse is found,

Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,

And makes the nations prove

The glories of His righteousness,

And wonders of His love,

And wonders of His love,

And wonders, wonders of His love.

And so, this month, I have challenged myself, and I'd like to challenge you, too. I'm not only going to "sing the whole thing," I'm going to read the whole thing.

Not the whole Bible, of course.  I can't pull that off in a month and get anything out of it.

But for every verse I come across, I'm going to read the whole chapter.  Every devotional, every song, every reference I happen to come across, I'm going to try to sit right down and look it up, and give myself the whole portion.

It might be hard when I'm in the middle of something, to force myself to open my Bible, but I'm hoping to not just enjoy those well-known tidbits of Scripture, but the verses after that.  And even those obscure verses, often omitted for time  :)

So how about it.  Want to join me?  I'm guessing we'll discover joy.  And, of course, the wonders of His love.

Now if only I could get our worship band to do Handel's Messiah...

~ "now you must complete the doing of it;

that as there was a readiness to desire it, 

so there also may be a completion out of what you have." ~

2 Corinthians 8:11

~