Man's Chief End

One of my favorite playlists for the last year or so has been Brian Sauve's Westminster Shorter Catechism Songs. I recalled when we used to homeschool and taught this to our kids and thinking how much I would have loved to have this version back in the day when our kids were learning it. I think singing it together would have been loads of fun, and much easier to memorize. 

These days, any time I have a household project to do, I put this playlist on. It's been the background music for canning in the kitchen, graphic design work in the office, seed starting in the grow room, laundry, dishes, building projects in the shop, making breakfast or starting dinner... too many times to even count. It's replaced any other music I used to listen to in the house or shop, because it keeps my focus where it should be and keeps my thoughts engaged with what Scripture teaches about living the Christian life.

If you hold to the Westminster Shorter Catechism as I do, you know that first question is:  

"What is the chief end of man?"  

With the answer being: 

"man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever". 

How does that play out in the day to day interaction with all the things we find ourselves discussing or catching our attention? The first seven words of that answer sets the entire stage for every day, and every way we use to express ourselves. Even if it's just our own private thoughts about something.

"Man's chief end is to glorify God".

Every word, every thought, every action, every text, every social media post, every intention, every attitude, every mood,  every everything that we do or think or say is to glorify God. No exceptions and no excuses. That's a really tall order, and one I find myself falling short of, often.

In every day life, both offline and online, it's so easy to get caught up in the emotion of a thing we've read about, or the injustice of a thing we've heard about or something heavy we might be dealing with in our own personal lives.  But to reign in those emotions or outrage over a thing and to glorify God with our lives means we take the time needed to respond or react with grace, truth, patience, kindness, wisdom and with encouragement and edification to bring our thoughts and our words about those things fully into alignment with what honors God.  

The Scriptures have much to say about practicing self-control, and one of the best ways I've found to steer me in that direction and cause me to meditate on it, is to sing along with these Catechism songs that remind me what it means to literally live out my faith, and hopefully in the process, truly glorify God. 

I hope you'll check out that playlist and be blessed by it! 😀