Praising Right Through It

 

At the very moment they began to sing…the LORD caused the armies... to fight among themselves.  2 Chron. 20: 22

The problem is overwhelming, more than you can handle. The bills are due. The relationship is over. The medical report looks grim. You don't see a way out, and that gleam in the enemy’s eye challenges your faith. Your frantic prayers seem like wasted breath, so they begin to sound like wasted breath. “Lord, if you can do anything...” “Oh Jesus, they're gonna get me…” “God, if you don’t come through, I’m gonna have to take matters into my own hands. Why won’t you help me?”

That heavy sigh coming from heaven is not your imagination. How the Lord must weary of our faithless prayers! Our problems are not frustrating to Him, but our lack of faith is. He did not need the Israelites’ weapons or their strength. He required their praise instead. Only when the people began to sing and praise God did He step in on their behalf. They never even broke a sweat, because God did the whole thing without them. When the Lord fights our battles, He rides in upon the winds of our worship. He is eager to show himself strong to those whose hearts are wholly His (2 Chron. 16:9). Darlene Zcheche, former lead singer with Hillsong, writes this: “Praise is the proclamation that the enemy’s intent to plunder you, won't rock you.”

What do you proclaim when you face your battles? 

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Is Your Song New?

Sing to the LORD a new song.

That phrase is repeated more than a dozen times throughout the Bible. We read right over it, sing it glibly in choruses, but have you ever stopped to wonder what it means?

If you've been singing songs and hymns all your life, does that mean that they are used up? Should everyone be a songwriter? Is a 300-year-old hymn less valuable to the Lord because it's not a new song?

I pondered that phrase this morning and asked the Lord what it meant.

I thought of the prolific songwriters who bless us frequently with their new songs, their skill with lyrics, their twist of a phrase that lends new meaning to age-old thoughts. They have no trouble singing new songs, but what about the rest of us?

Would you like to know what He said?

Just as His mercies are "new every morning," so is our relationship with God. As we learn to love Him more, gain understanding of His ways, experience highs and lows, and develop a deeper trust and faith, old things take on new meaning. Scripture verses you've read a hundred times suddenly leap off the page and right into your soul. Worship music seems written just for you. Lines of song slip through your ears and take root in your heart as you sing them back to God.

Depending on your particular struggle at the moment, different songs reflect your heart as you offer the "sacrifice of praise." God takes pleasure in our songs. He loves music, loves for us to sing to him when it comes from deep inside. Rambling through nine verses of a hymn while simultaneously criticizing the pianist and wondering what's for lunch is not music to God's ears. He wants a new song.

So what are you singing these days? Are you offering lip service and calling it music? Does your attempt at praise and worship feel like it's stuck in the past?

If your heart hasn't crept toward God in a long time, then you're not singing a new song. It's not God's favorite kind of music, so you might as well save your breath. He's told us clearly the kind of music he likes. He wants to hear new songs, the ones ripped from your soul and offered to him. Whether penned by Isaac Watts or Hillsong, a new song is one that has captured the passions of your heart in lyrical form and made them acceptable to God.

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Forget the tired mantras that describe someone else's journey.

Offer to to God a new song!

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