Wind Chimes

My heart is confident, God;
I will sing;
I will sing praises with the whole of my being.
Wake up, harp and lyre!
I will wake up the dawn.
-- Psalm 108:1-2

Last week we talked about complaining to God when we are pinched and strained by what we encounter day to day. There’s nothing wrong with petitioning the Lord and crying out to Him from the depths of our sorrows. My heart has been broken. He does not expect me to deny the hurt and pain I feel. But that is not the end of it.

One Saturday morning I had volunteered to clean the church sanctuary. I was running a big vacuum cleaner up and down the aisles and between the pews, bellowing some hymn or other as I worked, thinking there was no one within a hundred yards of me. When I turned the vacuum off and looked up, I saw that the pastor and his wife had entered the building and were standing in the back. They were wonderful singers, musicians, and songwriters. The pastor called out to me, “I think you’ve found your key.” The Lord made me loud but He did not make me melodious.

And don’t get drunk with wine which leads to reckless actions, but be filled with the Spirit: speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ … (Ephesians 5:18-20)

Singing really isn’t an option for the New Testament believer. It is very much a command. I often don’t care for the music in churches, the so-called worship service that precedes the preaching or teaching in the typical evangelical Sunday morning meeting. Most of the time, I could skip the endless repetitive choruses and the strained, amateurish solos. Sometimes I enjoy the big orchestrated choir pieces, but all too frequently it seems that it’s all meant to entertain the audience or, possibly worse, create a sort of trance state so everybody is on the same wavelength and more suggestible.

When I am not so cynical and a little more receptive, though, nothing matters except the fact that God hears my voice. I may know a song by heart, or I may be reading words off the wall, but my heart is open to Him. It really is a “sacrifice of praise”. Music has an effect on the soul, sensitizing it. That’s what the psalmist is talking about when he says, “I will wake up the dawn.” It’s not the dawning of the day, but the soul being stirred by the light of the Spirit.

I confess that I used to sing more, and I think I got along better when I did. I suspect that my feelings of emptiness and futility would be mitigated and lessened by singing a song to the Lord. The truth is that sometimes words just aren’t enough, and we need to music to praise the Lord with our whole being. When you are in the shower, alone in your car, out in the backyard, you know any place where others won’t suffer – or more importantly, where you will not feel self-conscious -- sing. It’s not a psychological trick but a magical fact.