Skip to main content

Singing

           The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17)

 

If you ever watched a coach, chances are good that you’ll have heard them shouting things like, “No, no, no. Aren’t you ever going to get it right? Do it again!” If the athlete does it wrong in a game, the coach will likely be more colorful in his commentary. But if the athlete gets it right, the coach may well cheer. And if it’s during a game and results in a victory, the coach will likely be more colorful in his commentary. The better an athlete the athlete is, the more quickly the coach can move from correction to praise.

Of course, God isn’t our coach. He’s our Father. That means that He’s not only interested in our helping him put another game in the victory column. He wants us to grow up strong and healthy and would much rather take delight in us and rejoice over us than rebuke us. He’ll rebuke when it’s wise.

But after this past week, it would be nice to have someone serenade me. We all have tough days, weeks, months, and/or years, and I’m looking forward to the weekend off. I’m imagining a three-part harmony (possibly with some angelic background singers). The Holy Spirit would fly into the heavens as a first tenor. I like thinking of Jesus as a baritone while the Father hits those beautiful, low bass notes. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...

The Shepherd!

                 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep . (John 10:14) God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Genesis 3:14) The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths     for his name’s sake. Even though I walk     through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil,     for you are with me; your rod and your staff,     they comfort me. (Psalm 23:1-4) For the Jews, it was politically incorrect to make claims about yourself as a teacher (or possibly as anything else.) Teachers were expected to take pride in the...