When shall we sing?

15th of October

I recently heard a fantastic sermon about praise and worship and the importance of ministering to the Lord. I got so inspired that I decided to write about this. You might think that the title is stupid, but just wait till I come with my thoughts.

Maybe one thinks that singing goes together with joy and that’s what I will start with. It is written in James 5:13 “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms.” We see here that also the Bible combines singing and a good mood. I remember that when I was a small girl I commented to my mother that something was wrong since she had stopped dancing with the broom and stopped singing. In James it says that we should sing psalms. Other songs are naturally good too. We can sing in the car and at home. I believe that you will get harmonious children if you sing a lot. Can you imagine waking up to a singing mother and father? We have many jokes about singing in the shower. I believe that it is healthy to sing in the shower. One can sing happy songs or praise the Lord in tongues and worship. Just think how wonderful it is to make a song to the Lord in the shower. “God . I thank You for this day and I thank You for being with me to-day. Thank You for Your goodness and for Your power. Thank You for protecting me. I am so happy that Your grace is new to-day. I am Yours. Hallelujah!” You can make your own. When shall we sing? The morning is absolutely a good time for it. You might say that you don’t feel like it. I agree with you, but we should not live by our emotions.

What is singing? Most of the time we think about written songs, but singing is so much more. We are created by God as creative human beings and we can therefore make songs. These songs might not be to be sung in a public meeting, but everybody can sing. I can almost hear some of you protesting, but that is true. We have different voices and all of them are not equally pretty, but I agree with a friend of mine who said that God has a special filter, filtering the false tunes. God is not a song educationist, but He listens to the heart. That is what matters. If you think that it is difficult to make new songs, ask the Holy Spirit to help you. We can read in psalm 40:3 that God put a new song in my mouth – praise to our God. We can praise the Lord at all times and almost everywhere. We should naturally not make a fool of ourselves, but praise and worship are not limited to the church and to the meetings. Many say that they get so blessed when they worship, but we are actually blessing the Lord and when we get blissful, that’s a bonus. We get happy when we honor the Lord. We can many times read in the psalms of David that they got a new song for the Lord. They sang about His righteousness, His grace, about His strength and about His Word. It was praise and thanksgiving. We will always have something to thank Him for. We can start by the fact that Jesus has paid the punishment and the price for our sins. We can thank God for the fact that we are created in His image and for all the things that He has given us in His creation. We can thank Him for the promises and for everything that He has done for each and every one of us. These are just a few examples of the many things that we can be thankful for.

It is easy to sing when everything is fine and one is in a good mood, but many people are not there, but they sing anyway. I especially remember in India. You could constantly listen to men singing in the streets. Many of them had a difficult life, but they sang anyway. One could often listen to poor children singing. That made me ashamed and made me think. The cleaning woman often sang and washed at the same time. That created a good atmosphere. I recently wrote about environment and singing creates a good environment. I sang in a choir as a child and that belongs to the good memories from my childhood.

One can sing alone and together with many others. I recently heard a story from Estonia. When they wanted to get independent from Russia, they started a singing revolution. They sang national songs, psalms and hymns. There could be thousands of people together. They won a victory, partly through their singing. Singing is also a weapon for us Christians, both individually and corporately. I heard about a pastor’s wife who got the bad news that she had a serious case of cancer and the doctor said that she had to be operated within a few days. When they were on their way home from the doctor, she asked her husband to stop and buy a tambourine. He was shocked, but did as she asked for. She used this tambourine a lot that weekend and she sang and praised the Lord. It might not be what she felt doing, but it was very smart. She got healed. I need to remind myself of this story quite often. It is so much easier to sing songs of complaints when the devil attacks me with sickness. Do I get well from that? No. Do I get in a good mood? No. Praise and worship is a very effective weapon against the devil, but it isn’t always easy to use it. We can think of David. He played for King Saul when he was suffering under demonic attacks. The devil doesn’t like to be where they praise the living God. He wants to draw the attention towards himself. Should we allow that or should we sing praises to Him who is worthy all our praise and worship? If you want the devil out of your home, sing and worship. I remember an Indian family I stayed with. They were under quite serious attacks from the devil. When it was at the worst, we put on strong worship tapes and started to sing and dance. The sick children took shawls and danced. It resulted in a victory. I really believe that if we started to praise God from the bottom of our hearts, we would see revival and victory where we to-day are fighting. The Holy Spirit loves to be in praise and worship and we need Him. Praise and worship is not a program or agenda, but a life-style.

I believe that we can sing at any times. I remember one of my mission trips. Our plane had stranded on an extremely cold airport and could not continue the entire night. We were freezing, but decided to sing songs of worship. It functioned very well. We were attacked with batons on another trip and were very close to be captured. We had to flee in a mini-bus. The experience was quite serious and a dangerous, but we started to sing and praise God our Savior and His presence filled us, healed us and gave us new courage.

Praise and worship is not only a weapon, but we will find healing and consolation in it. There was a time when I couldn’t lift one of my arms and this lasted for a few months. I attended a trip to a former Communist state. They had no heating in the church and it was quite cold, but the worship was strong. I sang and all of a sudden I could lift my arm and I was totally healed.

God has created us as creative people and singing is an expression of creativity. I can be satisfied in my soul by listening to people who sing beautifully, but my spirit gets activated when I praise God.

The title was: “When can we sing?” I think that the song is inside of us and we can always sing, maybe not loud, but I have several times woken up with a song on my lips. Many times words and melodies can pop up even when I am busy doing something else. If you are in a middle of a difficult situation now, sing. If you have a mountain in front of you, sing until it moves. (I presume that you understand that this is symbolically speaking.)Sing alone, sing together with others, sing in the car, sing in the forest and sing in the church. “Sing and be happy and you will see how many friends you will get,” I sang as a child. There is a truth in this song.

BECOME A SINGING PERSON AND YOU WILL SEE HOW YOUR LIFE WILL CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mother Else