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