Melody in your heart to the Lord

Eph.
{5:19} Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
{5:20} Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
{5:21} Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
When was the last time you spoke to anyone in a psalm, or a hymn, or a spiritual song? When was the last time you made a melody in your heart to the Lord?
That last question is fairly easy to answer right? We sing all the time, or some of us do. I know I do, I love the various Christian songs out there and almost everytime I'm in the car I have the radio on and I sing along. My heart is making melody to the Lord and often- but do we speak in psalms and hymns, spiritual songs?
Would we even know how to speak in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs? It's a question I think that bears considering.
No, I'm not saying we start going around singing at each other, but there is an element in what is being encouraged that needs to be incorporated into our lives. Uplifting one another is important and all too often we're more about what is depressing and makes our lives anxious not what uplifts. We'll more often than not have unhappy things to speak about and it does give us something to talk about, in fact some peoples lives are most active when they're engaging in discussing things that aren't so pleasant.
Spiritual songs, singing, making melody in our hearts to the Lord.
Giving thanks always....
How often?
Always.
Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Giving thanks for all things.
We can't understand all things, we just can't. But we can trust that our lack of understanding won't change God's love for us. We want to believe that God stops loving us when horrible things happen to us. Satan wants us to think that, it's his way of maligning God and gaining more and more to Him. But wait, we don't like to think like that. We don't like to believe that there are only two sides. We want to believe there are many sides and if we linger on those sides close to God then we are going to be Gods. Unfortunately, that's not true it's something we've made up so we can soothe our conscience and make excuses for our bad behavior.
Whenever we are upset by life's hardships- and there are tons of them- we have to cry out to God but not in such a way that put doubts to His love for us.
Giving thanks always even when we don't understand.
Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
Do we do that? It would make us subservient right? Who wants to be subservient? We grow up being taught to stand up for ourselves, to be those who have others *working* for us, not us working for them. Rich means having housekeepers, having servants. Yet Christ wants us to be servants to all. The greatest is the one who is servant to all. The greatest is the least. It's no wonder that Satan has us mostly believing that the least is the worst. The servant is the lowest. That submitting ourselves ont to another, not for our own glory, but in the fear of God. Out of reference for God. We do it because it is God's will that we serve and submit that we are those who give and aren't those who just take. Love is giving. Love is graciously accepting.
Love is God and if we are to be God's we need to be loving knowing that sin isn't something God enjoys, that He never intended things to be how they are and yet rather than give up on us and wipe us out of existence he's allowed us to live and made a way for redemption in Him through the greatest sacrifice of all - His Son.
May God bless and keep us, may we learn to make melodies in our hearts to the Lord and give thanks always, and to submit ourselves to one another. By the will and grace of our Lord now and forever.
Amen.