Why we must sing

Into yesterday’s questions, yesterday’s glimpse of poverty and inability to praise, God speaks through a woman who has asked the same questions. 

"I know there is poor and hideous suffering and I’ve seen the hungry and the guns that go to war. But I have lived pain and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of peonies in June and the song of crickets on summer humid nights and the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives.

How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is Joy Who saves us? Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn’t rescue the suffering. The converse does.

The brave who focus on all things good and all things beauty and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to the all the world.” 

Ann Voscamp ~One Thousand Gifts, A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

And so today I give thanks. I still feel the pain of yesterday’s sidewalk-dwelling fellow image-bearers. But it doesn’t stop me from praising. It makes it all the more essential that I do.

Today I celebrate the God of the impossible. The God who is able to do more than we ask or imagine. The One who stepped into the pain and felt it himself so he could exchange despair for hope.

This is the Extravagant Giver who does not stop at essentials but pours out blessing upon blessing, a whole sky-full of one lavish canvas after another, the show changing every moment for more than an hour.

And I sing because he is not oblivious to the state of the world. He weeps with the poor. But he knows that evil will not have the last word. Love will. And so he paints beauty and declares hope and shouts his love and I must too.

So I sing to this Lavish Lover who calls us to give and then gives it all back and tells us to use it to host a party with him and the poor at the center.

Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the LORD your God always. But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the LORD your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the LORD will choose to put his Name is so far away), then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the LORD your God will choose. Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice. And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own. (Deuteronomy 14:22-27)

I sing because nothing is too hard for him, and one day all that is wrong will be set right and there will be no more tears or sorrow or homelessness.

More of the endless gifts:

Never ending Love-paintings in the sky

Faithfulness new every morning

Hope in the darkest of places

Hearts that can hurt and heal and beat with His heartbeat

Being called to share his life

The promise that all will be made new.

When you’re down on yourself

When we were children, if Dad caught one of us doing something we shouldn’t have been doing, he would often frown and say “grrrrowwwllll.” He spoke gently, never raising his voice, but we knew that we had better stop what we were doing.

Now sometimes I hear the Life-giving Lion gently growl at me through the pages of Scripture. His growl is a warning, but not a fearful one. It is a warning that moves me in the direction of Life, breathing love and peace and joy over me even as he growls. Today I hear the healing growl in Romans 8:33-34.

“Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”

These verses picture God as the Judge and Jesus as the defense attorney. I am the defendant.

But far too often, I find myself stepping into the seat of the prosecutor. “That was so stupid. I can’t believe you did that!” “You’re so selfish. Lazy too. Maybe if you’d just try harder. . .” “Will you ever learn from your mistakes?” “Just look at yourself. How can God ever use someone like you?”

Not content to be the prosecutor, I even try to take the position of judge, declaring myself guilty and handing down a sentence.

Into this unruly crowd of one, the True Judge speaks, reminding me that there are enough prosecutors without taking that position myself. And there is only One qualified to judge.

The Lion’s gentle growl reminds me that the verses from Romans 8 speak not merely of the inability of others to charge or condemn me. They speak also to my tendency to step into the seat of prosecutor and judge. “Who do you think you are, to condemn yourself, when I have declared you righteous?” God alone has the right to make the final call. And, incredibly, it is God who justifies.

I could not have a better defense attorney. Since the time when he stepped down to serve the death sentence himself, he does not leave his place, a continual presence reminding the Judge, the prosecutors, and the defendant (should I care to hear), that the maximum sentence has already been served and the defendant can no longer be held liable.

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

May you, too, know the freedom of being merely the defendant, and the joy of hearing the Defense Attorney and the Judge declare you no longer guilty.

Hope in Shattered Places

“. . . We live in the shadow of the fall
But the cross says these are all
Places where grace is soon to be so amazing
It may be unfulfilled
It may be unrestored
But when anything that's shattered is laid before the Lord
Just watch and see
It will not be unredeemed . . .”
(Selah “Unredeemed”)

On this Monday celebrating the thousand gifts, the truth of God’s re-creating grace tops my list. I love watching how God brings Life and Hope out of the most painful of places.

A few other gifts on my list:

fruit smoothies

warm sun on bare arms

the laughter of children on the playground

little boys imagining sticks into trucks

a dog chasing a ball

washing machines (much easier than hand scrubbing!)

four-part a capella hymns sung with a large congregation

cool early summer morning air

constantly changing colors in the sky at twilight

God’s lavish generosity that keeps pouring on the gifts faster than I can count

a thousand risings full of God's faithful love