Sing and Be at Peace
We sing when we are happy. We sing the truth. Can we sing and be at peace? When we consider when we are happy, yes we can sing and be at peace with contentment in Christ. If we sing in truth, we certainly receive peace with God and enjoy His righteousness. It begins to be more difficult when we are melancholy. There will be times when we are sad. A lost loved one. A broken relationship. Sin and the lasting consequences of sin can break our hearts, and stifle our desire to sing. I am reminded of a Psalm written in Babylon when the children of the southern kingdom were taken into captivity because of their sin.
“By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, yea, we wept, When we remembered Zion. Upon the willows in the midst thereof we hanged up our harps. For there they that led us captive required of us songs, And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing Jehovah’s song in a foreign land” (Psalm 137:1-3)?
Can you imagine what it would be like to be a Jewish captive at this time, sitting down on the banks of the Tigris or Euphrates Rivers in Babylon? You would be 900 miles from home. The sorrow which filled their hearts must have been unbearable. To add insult to injury evidently, the Babylonians wanted to be entertained by their captives. The response of these Hebrews was, “How shall we sing Jehovah’s song in a foreign land?” The songs of Jehovah would certainly be joyful when the mood was joyful. Is it possible to sing when afflicted, enslaved, or imprisoned?
The book of Acts tells us of a time when Paul and Silas certainly were in dire straits. They had been beaten, thrown in prison, and put in stocks. By all accounts, this did not have all the makings of a joyous time.
“And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely: who, having received such a charge, cast them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks. But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns unto God, and the prisoners were listening to them” (Acts 16:23-25).
The hardest times to sing are times when we face trouble. Our hearts are broken with the state of our circumstances or even the world at large. Paul and Silas had little to no incentive to sing by the world's account. However, they made a choice to pray to God, and also to sing hymns unto Him. When our world is turned upside down, we should be mindful of the peace that is found in singing hymns unto God. We praise God and we have an effect on others. The prisoners were listening to Paul and Silas and they would witness the power of God soon after this. What a time of wonderment that must have been for those accused criminals who found themselves chained alongside these men who prayed and sang to God.
When we sing, we can be at peace with God and with our circumstances. Paul and Silas did not want to be in prison. They were put there unjustly. They did not let that stop them from singing. The Lord has commanded singing as worship. We should be mindful of the command, “speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19). This reminds us that we speak to one another when we do this. It is designed, yes, to sing and praise the Lord, but the dual purpose is the edification of one another. The companion passage in Colossians 3:16 reads, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto God.” When we sing we teach and admonish. The term admonish, is a term that can mean to warn, but also to appeal to the mind. When we appeal to the minds of our brethren and we sing, it is a source of peace. When we struggle to make sense of life and we need peace, sing. Appeal to what you already know, but you may need a reminder of it. Even in the midst of Babylon or a prison, God is still God and He still cares for you (1 Peter 5:7). Sing, and be at peace.
Grace and Peace.
R.D. Beavers
