Don't Hang Up Your Harp (Part 5)

The challenge of singing the Lord's song in a strange land is not new. Many are faced with the dilemma of how to bring personal spirituality into the work place, without appearing to be overzealous. Others find it difficult to sing, to remain optimistic in the face of failures, setbacks, or loss. Some seem temperamentally predisposed to pessimism. Others permit sins to steal their joy, refusing to confess or forsake them. Instead they hang it up, putting their harps in storage, refusing to sing on the foreign soil of disappointment  and despair.

We feel the strangeness our nation today. Many have said that this is not the America we grew up in. Does it not seem like foreign soil to you when we hear about child abuse, weapons in schools, or gratuitous violence in our various forms of entertainment? Remember-this world is not our home, we are just passing thru it.

Israel should have sung. Yes, music and joy were far from their hearts. Yes, anger and a desire for revenge buffeted their spirits. Yes, God seemed so far away. But the strangeness of our circumstances is no excuse for hanging up our harps. Jesus left us an example of singing in the rain of suffering and even approaching death. Moreover, praise brings deliverance. Israel should have sung.

We can refuse to hang it up by making a commitment to three simple practices:

-First, we must refuse to use the unusual situations as an excuse.

Often we behave as if our trial is unique. But 1 Corinthians 10:31 reminds us that the tests we face are common to humanity. Others are traveling with us in the strange country of failure, frustration, and fear, and many of these saints have learned to sing in spite of struggle. We are, therefore, without excuse.


-Second, we should follow Jesus' example in the way He sang through the pain.

Jesus was a stranger in this world, leaving the chants of cherubims and the songs of seraphims to journey to this planet on a salvation mission. He was despised and rejected and abused and mistreated. Relatives and even His closest friends often misunderstood Him. Earth for Jesus was a strange land, but He refused to hang it up.
Only once in the New Testament in Matthew 26:30 is it recorded that Jesus sang. When did He sing?

a. He sang on the night in which He was betrayed.

b. He sang after washing the disciples' feet.

c. He sang as the shadow of a cross fell unmistakably across His pathway.

d. He sang as Judas hurried to betray Him. He sang at the end of His Last Supper.

e. He sang as He headed for the agonies in the Garden of Gethsemane and the hill called Calvary, the place of the skull.

f. He sang a hymn as His outward world was falling apart.

If Jesus could sing in the strange land of suffering, we have no excuse for hanging it up.

-Third, we should permit praise to bring deliverance. 

We confuse Satan when we sing God's song in a strange land, for our God inhabits our praise according to Psalm 22:3. The enemy expects us to respond to life's trials with complaints and exasperation, but praise brings us into God's presence. Refusing to hang it up brings Divine reinforcement.

Acts 16 reveals that Paul and Silas were incarcerated unfairly. They were beaten without the benefit of due process and jailed without being permitted to defend themselves. They traveled in the strange world of injustice. Yet instead of hanging it up, they began to sing and the other prisoners heard them. Their joyful singing so influenced heaven that the earth shook and their chains fell off, for praise brings deliverance.

Our lives are beset with dangers, toils, and snares, but we must refuse to hang it up. Our Savior promises to be with us even in a strange land. He said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you'" in Hebrews 13. Jude 14 says He is able to keep us from falling . He has promised to supply every need of ours according to His unspeakable riches in Philippians 4. He has gone to prepare a place for us and promises to come again in John 14. Even in a strange land, that's some thing about which we can sing.

Practicing these three simple things can have a  liberating impact in your life.