If your mind was a home, would you choose to live there? If your thoughts were visitors, would you let them in? Who would you ignore? Who would never make it through the door?
Our brains are great at telling stories, again and again. Not all of them are helpful or true. We tend to stress over tomorrow or ruminate on yesterday, rehashing old arguments, fearing the hypothetical, obsessing over things that are out of our control. But it does not have to be this way. You can make your mind a better place in which to live.
Recently, a friend of mine sent me a song by Ellie Holcomb. The words hit me like a flood of light into a dark, lonely room:
“Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Where can I go from Your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, You are there
If I make my bed in the depths, You are there!”
These lyrics come straight from the Psalms, a book of songs and poetry in the Bible. This one says that God is everywhere, all the time. His presence is not restricted to a single place or state of mind. He is with me at church; He is with me at soccer training; He is with me on the drive to work. God is here when I am at my best, when I am my worst—and He is everywhere in between. He does not change and He never leaves. I knew this, cognitively, but my body had forgotten how close and how kind God really is. So, He used a song to remind me.
There is a song in the Psalms for every situation: grief, joy, anger, gratitude, confusion—you name it.
Several months ago, I sat down at the piano, feeling rejected after an awkward conversation. I opened my Bible to Psalm 57 and started singing the words.
“Be merciful to me, O God!
Be merciful
For in You my soul takes refuge
In the shadow of Your wings
I will take refuge
‘Til the storms of destruction pass by.”
Within minutes, my heart was soothed.
Another night, I found myself in a panic: tight chest, anxious mind. I picked up my guitar and started to sing Psalm 27:
“The Lord is my light and my salvation:
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?”
That night, I sang and sang and sang and each word drove the fear further away.
Another day, a Psalm caught me mid-spiral. I was feeling frustrated when a song from the Psalms started playing in the back of my mind. It felt like an invisible hand slowly turned up the music until my anger subsided.
When we feel frozen, frazzled or frightened, music cuts through the fog in a way that words alone cannot. It is tempting to turn to temporary fixes when life becomes unbearable. We can numb ourselves by scrolling through our phones, swallowing whatever the algorithm offers. Some of us overwork, others overeat, others oversleep or rely on other vices. We have a cornucopia of distractions at our fingertips, ready to alleviate our suffering. But where do we go when the numbness fades and the ache returns?
The Bible is not an anesthetic. The Psalms do not shy away from pain. These songs cut right into the human heart, their words full of questions, complaints and desperate cries. They are also full of gratitude and beauty. There is no shallow comfort here, only rich, hard-earned hope and tear-stained cheeks. God gives us joy through the ache, instead of an escape.
Some of my dearest friendships have been deepened through conflict and hard conversations. The Psalms constantly teach me how to talk with God like a friend. They give me words to pray when I do not have any of my own. Many were written to be sung, not read. I love reading the Psalms but singing them weaves each word right into the fabric of my mind.
The first chapter in the Psalms promises a blessing to anyone who delights in God’s instruction, thinking about it “day and night”. That person will become like a tree planted by rivers of water that produces fruit in its season. Its leaves will not wither and whatever he does will prosper. That is a bold claim to make right at the start of the book—one worth testing out.
Does your life feel dry? Fruitless? Like you are withering away? Get a Bible, choose a section and chew on it for a while. Let it run through your mind, again and again. The Psalms are a great place to start, they are honest and hopeful, rich in comfort. I cannot think of anything better to have stuck in my head.
Kemy Ogendi wries from Central Australia. She is currently working on a handful of music projects in Alice Springs, one including several Psalms. You can listen to her music here.
