It was loud and joyful, the emotion and depth of feeling, every word was sang with feeling, the lyrics were often repeated but they never lost their meaning. I was in church, in a shack of a building in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and I would have done anything to transfer these 300 women to any UK church. I think I was moved because every single one of them had no reason to sing in terms of material blessing or circumstantial blessing. In fact all of them were rape victims from the ongoing rebel-led war and raped many times. But they were happy in the presence of God.
When the suffering sing angels join in and God comes into the place.
“Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise.” (James 5 v 13)
James is saying if you are suffering due to the persecution of being a Christ=follower then pray and if you are cheerful because of being such, then sing!
Let the mouths of the Church be filled with singing because of the good things God has done as well as asking for Him to help us.
Singing is very important to the Christian. It brings God into our thoughts; it lifts us above our struggles; it confirms our belief in the words we sing and it confronts the darkness that we may be facing.
Corrie Ten Boom who with her family helped save around 800 Jewish lives in the Holocaust of World War 2, captured and taken into solitary confinement would begin each day by singing, “Stand up stand up for Jesus ye soldiers of the cross.”
The history of the persecuted church is full of stories of followers of Jesus praising God in the last hours of their life on earth. Emperors were known to put their fingers in their ears and scream “why do these Christians sing as we kill them?” as the gladiators or the lions ravaged their bodies.
David ran away from Saul who was trying to kill him. He hid in a cave and wrote, “I am in the midst of lions; I am forced to dwell among ravenous beasts— men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.”
But then he looks outside the cave and something erupts within his heart:
“Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.” Psalm 57:4-5
It is not the song itself but it is the heart behind the singer. Praise stems from the heart.
“May the praise of God be in our mouths.” Psalm 149:6
“I will sing and make music. I will awaken the dawn.” Psalm 57:7-8
God always does something in you before He does something outside of you. The internal is more important than the external.
There is a song that is sung before dawn, in the night, where there is darkness, fear, terror, loneliness, isolation, God says sing!
Missions Paul 