April 27

Psalm 40, 49, 50, 73

Psalms that inspire.

As we've been reading the Psalms, I've noticed portions that sound familiar to me. This is because many artists use the words of the Psalms as lyrics for songs we know and sing today. The Word of God has the power to inspire people. I notice this is especially true when it comes to inspiring songs and music.

Here is one example: U2 has a song called 40 off their album War. When asked about the song's title, Bono replied, "When we were making our third record, the War LP, we were being thrown out of the studio by the studio manager because we had overrun or something and we had one more song to do. We wrote this song in about ten minutes, we recorded it in about ten minutes, we mixed it in about ten minutes and we played it, then, for another ten minutes and that's nothing to do with why it's called '40'." All kidding aside, the song was actually inspired by Psalm 40:

"I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the Lord."


(Here is a link to a video of U2 performing this song live: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB4kxMj0-IE&playnext_from=TL&videos=OITmOEhuIB4 )

Because of the Word's inspiring power, millions of people all over the world have heard and sung Psalm 40. The Bible has the power to change lives. How has reading the Bible changed or inspired you?