MANKIND NEEDS TWO things: a song to sing and a creed to believe. Perhaps they should be reversed—a creed to believe and a song to sing.
In order to sing, the heart and mind must have something to sing about. A missionary in Korea, while making purchases in a bazaar, unconsciously began to sing. The people gathered around him, and when he finished they asked him to sing another song. He said, “I will, if you will sing one for me.” A little girl spoke up and said, “But, sir, we have nothing to sing about.” “We have nothing to sing about”—that is the deepest revelation of the heart of the majority of mankind. They have nothing to sing about.
To sing you must feel that the sum total of reality is behind your song—that you voice “the music of the spheres,” that you are taking up the song that was sung at creation when the morning stars sang together—the song of creation. We must feel that we are singing the song of the new creation. When we are in Christ we can sing that song of the new creation. We are a part of it. It is working in us.
During the persecution of the Christians in Madagascar some of those who were hunted were in a cave. They said to their leader, “We must sing.” He replied: “I beg you, brethren, not to sing. Our enemies are hunting us and to sing would give away our hiding place.” “But,” the Christians replied, “we must sing. We will sing in our minds.” So they did! When they were finally discovered and thrown over a cliff, they sang as their bodies hurtled through the air. The early Christian martyrs sang as they marched to their death, “This is the day that the Lord hath made; we will be glad and rejoice in it.”
O Jesus, my Lord, I do not deserve to sing. I sing through Thy redeeming grace, and when I sing, I know I’m not singing a surface song. I’m singing creation’s and re-creation’s song. It comes from the depths, for it comes from being in Christ. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Affirming what Christ affirms, I affirm what reality affirms; everything backs me and blesses me.
