Favorites... in Context

My 16 month old son loves books. He can't read of course, but he likes the pictures and voices and sounds that his mother and I make when we read to him. Usually, though, he has a favorite page. Sometimes he'll pick up a book and turn right to his favorite. He wants to look at a particular page's drawing or hear my elephant impression. There's been times that we've been reading a book and once we've passed his favorite page, he'll turn back the page to "re-play" his favorite part. If I don't let him go back he'll wiggle out of my lap to find a different book or toy. If it's not his favorite, he doesn't want to hear or look at it!

I find that in many ways my son is like me. The saying goes, "like father, like son". I have my favorites. This can be especially true of Psalms. Looking back at my practices over the last few years, I tend to sing the same familiar selections during family worship. Perhaps I'm not the only one who does this. For a recent post I was looking up the lyrics to Chris Miner's "God be Merciful to Me (Psalm 51)". I was reminded as I compared it to the ESV translation that verses 16 to 19 were omitted. In a sense, I think this is understandable. Even at only 6 stanzas, its a long song. Perhaps the last four verses were meant to be sung as an accompanied selection. But there's the problem: where is it? If I didn't know better (and for a long time I didn't) I'd have thought that I knew all of Psalm 51 when in fact I was missing some of the larger picture; I was missing the rest of the story.

All this to say that the little book, Singing the Songs of Jesus has made me thirst a little bit to know the context. I think as my son grows up he'll learn more of the stories I read to him. That doesn't mean he won't still love that favorite drawing or laugh when Daddy does the elephant impression. Perhaps the drawing will take on more meaning as he realizes what it means to the plot. Perhaps he'll like the elephant impression because it helps him to feel like he's part of the story. Perhaps that what I want, too.