Songs of Hope

This is a short one today but I wanted to point out the importance of singing songs of lament, or as I like to call them, songs of reminding or encouragement or recounting.

I know that I have talked about this in previous posts (look at “Have a Joy-full New Year” and “Joy > happiness”), but I just wanted to touch on it briefly from a song and worship team standpoint, as well. Please sing songs of reminding - as individuals or in your gatherings. Songs that say “I’m going through a hard time and I have questions, but I look to You, God, I know You are bigger, I know that I have much to be joyful for and, instead of looking inward or at man, I will look to You because I know that You see all of life from beginning to end and You know what is best for me - Yourself.”

People may say that I’m being a downer by saying this, too contemplative, too whatever. But that’s the point. Why is that? The fact that they are seen as downer songs shows how the local churches are so in need of focusing on the fun, trying to make the church “cool”, trying to make the attention be on the idea that God will bless His people materially or financially, or that “rejoicing always” means that we don’t get sad or can’t say no to unhealthy things. But the thing is, God never promised His people that they would be happy (in the superficial, surface-y, “fun” usage of the word), He definitely didn’t promise that Christians would be blessed materially or financially. And rejoicing always doesn’t mean that we won’t have hardships or hard conversations. But it does mean that, in those circumstances we will have a deep unwavering joy. God never promised His people that they would be without difficulties in this life. God can bring a non-Christian to a place where He will open their eyes to faith through hardships, but, for a Christian, hardships take on a different role. He opens our eyes to more of Him during those times, He shows us that He alone is our greatest Hope, He shows us that we are small and that we are able to come before Him - Almighty God - in prayer and talk through our circumstances instead of worrying because we are in infinite-sized hands. He enables us to react differently than the world BECAUSE we know that He is big, that we are small, that we are sojourners in this world and nothing that can be done can ever change our position before Him as a Christian, found hid in Christ and identified as one who is under His headship. He enables us to react differently than the world BECAUSE we can know the sufficiency of Christ’s work and the Spirit at work in us as a guarantee of our glorification. God never promised that we would have blessings as the world defines it. But that’s just it - we have to look at it with godly eyes. The world defines blessings very differently = material, financial, getting your status or your fame or your pleasures met, obtaining the definition of success in the world. The Christian defines it as knowing that awe-fueling truth that we are saved, knowing that He is going to show us more of Himself and that is a joy to our soul, knowing that He is going to continue His work of growing us and changing us, that He will reveal to us more and more about how the hope of resting on Him is far better than the sinking sand of worldly pursuits and pleasures, that He - and relationship with Him - is the greatest blessing in this world beyond anything else. Everything else that He brings into a life is another reason to thank Him, yes, just like everything He takes away was a delight for that time, but ultimately we are worshippers of God first and foremost and that will continue with much or with little, in any circumstance we face, in highs and lows. Paul had little and he had that little often and he had a thorn that would not pass, and this is the one who wrote the words to rejoice always. Do you see? It’s not that we are just supposed to be happy and make light of things or never have hard anythings, it’s that in those circumstances we can have a hope and joy and peace in resting in mighty and omniscient hands and beholding Him who did a sovereign work by His sovereign grace in our lives. He ordains our circumstances for our good, He works all things for good for those who are His - why? So that we would see Him more, that we would grow to know that true joy that He desires for His people. Because what is the good? Himself.

So the songs that focus on remembering this together as believers are needed. We sing them together as prayers - and just like our prayers we can say, “Lord we are going through this, we need Your guidance, we need You…BUT (and this is the thing)…But let Your will be done and we will rest in You and we will look to You and we know that we have a LOT to be thankful for always.” These songs are reminder songs, these songs are recalling His power and His plans songs. They are needed to be sung. As any of you who know me know, I have commented before about how these songs should take the form of the Psalms - they ask questions, they say that we, as small humans, can’t see the whole picture, but then they go into recounting who God is, what He has done, and saying, because of this, because we know who You are, God, we will put our trust in You. Sing these songs, people in the church universal - sing them and recount His work, sing them and hold fast to hope, sing them in the midst of all of our circumstances and know that we can know joy because we know Him - Almighty God, Sovereign Lord, Saviour King.