Looking for a place to feel inspired and challenged? Like to share a smile or a laugh? Interested in becoming more familiar with Canadian writers who have a Christian worldview? We are writers who live in different parts of Canada, see life from a variety of perspectives, and write in a number of genres. We share the goal of wanting to entertain and inspire you to be all you can be with God's help.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Tuning our Harps - Lawrence
As for our harps, we hung them up on the trees in the midst of that land. / For those who led us away captive asked us for a song, and our oppressors called for mirth: “Sing us one of the Songs of Zion.” / How shall we sing the Lord’s song upon an alien soil? Psalm 137: 2 – 4
We can sing the Lord’s song at any time and in any place, and it is even more important that we sing it when we are on alien soil. When we are captives in a strange land, we need to sing songs of praise—the very singing of these songs of praise releases us from captivity. What is captivity for us? It does not necessarily mean being behind bars in a prison cell, it may mean being captive to negative thinking about a situation in which we find ourselves.
We may not feel like singing God’s praises when things go wrong in our lives, we may want to wallow in our misery. However, a difficult situation is not the time to hang up our harps but a time to sing the Lord’s song with even more vigour. It is a time to strengthen our faith; a time to sing a song of praise and of thanksgiving for the lesson the Holy Spirit is presenting to us.
If we hang up our harps in times of trouble, we are captive to the events in our lives; but if we retune our harps at these times we are free to receive other gifts that God is offering us—new vistas, new horizons, new adventures. When our captors say sing, we must ask, “How loud and in what key?”
If we hang up our harps they will go out of tune and be useless until someone else comes along and takes them, tunes them, sings the Lord’s song, and reaps the benefit. When we sing God’s praises in tough times the Holy Spirit is able to move into our events and give the fruits or seeds of a new harvest. We must listen to what the Spirit says and tune our harps and sing with joy.
© Judith Lawrence
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts
-
Write Canada is more than a professional networking conference. It’s a safe place where beginning and intermediate writers can learn ...
-
I have been reading again Philip Yancey’s classic, What’s so Amazing about Grace ? My own thoughts about forgiveness have been challenged ag...
-
by Rev Ed Hird One of the best loved Christmas Carols is the 146-year-old carol: Good King Wenceslas. In 1853, John Mason Neale chose Wences...
-
Writers—especially those who aspire to write books—are currently being told that the publishing industry is undergoing a massive change. Th...
-
There is no diminishing the power of floods, their waters savage and raging, merciless to anything in their paths. I’ve seen too many flood...
-
By Rev. Dr. Ed and Janice Hird -an article published in the May 2020 Light Magazine In 1665, Richard and Margaret Baxter survived...
-
I picked up an old magazine in a doctor’s office yesterday. It was an anniversary issue, dated Sept 11, 2002. The magazine, a Canadian publi...
-
By Rev. Dr. Ed and Janice Hird -an article published in the Light Magazine How many Mennonite or Mennonite heritage people do you kn...
-
A certain photograph album lay on my grandparents’ coffee table in their city home. They’d been on a train ride through the Ro...
-
Right now I am in the tail-end of a very grueling novel deadline. We had sickness and other challenges to deal with over the month of Decemb...
1 comment:
Judith,
How you stir my heart to make music with this faith-inspiring, joy-promoting article!
As one for whom music has been a large part of his life since childhood and a piano-tuner technician in my pre-pastoral days, you strike warm and harmonious chords. I especially appreciate the statement, "... if we retune our harps at these times we are free to receive other gifts that God is offering us—new vistas, new horizons, new adventures."
Thank you.
Post a Comment