God created music with a soul-stirring power, and the Bible is the greatest songbook that has ever been written. The Bible is filled with songs of praise, of lamentation, of redemption. Whatever befalls us, there is a song recorded as chapter or verse to speak to our heart and bring us closer to God.
Whenever I feel alone, scared, and in need of God’s tender mercies, I go outside into the hills to walk and pray. Sometimes my focus in prayer is inward: I walk in silence, seeking God in the stillness between breaths. Other times, when my physical body is overwhelmed and drowning in chemo or healing from surgery or when difficult emotions have a chokehold on my heart, I need to focus my prayer outward, away from what is happening within. That’s when I turn to music.
For me, any God-inspired song will do. It can be a traditional hymn, like “It is Well with My Soul”—a song that has transformed my hurting heart into a place of peace, acceptance, and grace. It could even be a popular favorite like “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” Oscar Hammerstein’s enduring classic of inspiration and resilience. Both songs remind me to hold fast to hope and God’s peace, even in experiences of tragedy. They bring to mind God’s promise in Isaiah, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze” (43:2).
There is a reason many of the greatest songs ever written are inspired by the Bible, for music is a gift from God—a beautiful mystery that speaks to us, reaches deep within our hardened or burdened hearts to touch us, and brings us peace. Through song, may “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding … guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7).
Edie Littlefield Sundby is the author of The Mission Walker. Despite less than one percent odds of survival when she was diagnosed with stage-four gallbladder cancer in 2007, she went on to walk the 1,600-mile California Mission Trail from Loreto, Mexico, to Sonoma, California.
