Our Father's Loud Singing

Dear friends,

This morning I’d like to ask you to please take a moment to meditate on a verse of Holy Scripture with which you are possibly very familiar.  Through His prophet Zephaniah, our Lord assures us of His great delight in us, which is difficult for us to fathom at times, and of His unwavering devotion to us, although we know that our devotion to Him wanes more often than we’d like to admit.  Let’s listen to these words together as deeply as we can.   

          The Lord your God is in your midst,

               a Mighty One who will save;

          He will rejoice over you with gladness;

               He will quiet you by His love;

          He will exult over you with loud singing.  (Zephaniah 3:17)

As I sit here at my desk writing this letter, I am listening to happy Celtic music, which I greatly enjoy.  But the happiness in the sounds of these dear Irish musicians in no way compares to the gladness in the grand Voice of our Father Who is rejoicing over you and me right now with “loud singing”! 

Please stop, and listen.  You may have to be still for a little while in order to block out all of the interfering sounds.  But do please listen.

I have just now reached and turned off the happy sounds of the flutes, whistles, strings, bodhrans, bones, and Irish voices.  Now I only hear the heavy rainfall outside my window.  It’s like the sound of a thousand maracas.  The usual Louisiana rolling, booming tympanies and sharply crashing cymbals are not there.  Only the shakers.  Only the steady sheets of shishing and shushing.  Normal neighborhood noises are completely and pleasantly obscured.  The morning rain seems to provide the perfect percussion backdrop for the singularly beautiful Voice of the Soloist – the One Who is singing about me and to me.  

Yet I find myself in great need of God’s help as I try to harness my listening powers to hear that lovely Voice.  Is it because I’m not adequately convinced of the magnitude of my Father’s delight in me, even me with all of my faults?  Or is it possibly because I just don’t listen often enough and well enough to have developed a stronger attunedness to His Voice?  Or is it because much of the time I have listened only for thoughts – just thoughts – from Him (the reception of which is of course a great blessing) and have not allowed my soul to regularly hear Him joyfully singing fortissimo of His fatherly affection for me.

As I have been trying to express my thoughts and feelings to you, I have been reminded that, by the grace granted through our Savior, you and I are now among those who can live as “seeing Him Who is unseen” (Hebrews. 11:27).  So also we can live as hearing the “loud singing” of Him Who is inaudible to us. God has called you and me to hear and see Him Who is soundless and invisible.  We see Him with the eyes of our hearts.  We hear Him with the ears of our souls.              

So, brothers and sisters, let’s pray for one another!  Let’s ask God to help us to hear His “loud singing” over you and me! 

Sitting under His songs with you,

Rod and Bec