We All Want to Sing—We Need a Song

What is it about music?  It can change our mood, bring us hope, settle our nerves, and jog our memories; it is magic. Recently, I watched a YouTube video that illustrates this perfectly. It is a commuter train in Australia, and everyone is on their way to work. The mood on the train is, well, moody. A guy in a suit hands out lyrics, and another starts singing with his ukelele, and well, the mood on that train changed!  Let me share a clip of it with you.

https://www.youtube.com/clip/Ugkxkr7GPHzv0GGuyuX5hFQXGUtJbmI6ebHr

I also love watching talent shows where a person is about to sing, and everyone is thinking what a dork, and they end up with a golden buzzer or a standing ovation. Sometimes, a child singing will bring tears to my eyes. There are songs that will bring me to tears, songs that will make me feel like I have my arm around Debbie and we are teens driving on a date, songs that lift my heart to God, songs that lift my patriotic mood, or songs like on this train that give me hope.   There is a saying: birds sing, not because all is well, but because they have a song.

I have seen children in modern bedrooms with toys galore and a computer saying: We are bored! I have also watched children with nothing playing in a garbage dump where they live, laughing and singing. Personally, at times, I have focused on something minor that made me angry or sad. Usually, it was something that wasn’t any of my business anyway. Oh yeah, I had a song, but bless God, I wanted to hold on to this anger just a little longer. Other times, I sang my song, though my heart was broken and my mind was confused. The key to sanity and hope is to always have people around you who love you.

We were created to live in a community so that we could pick one another up! Church is the community that Jesus founded. As Christians, we are not to go it alone; it is community. There is no room for the Just Me and Jesus attitude in Christianity.  We don’t baptize ourselves, serve ourselves communion, pray for ourselves, and even the prayer Jesus taught the disciples is a community prayer:  

“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
¹⁰ your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹ Give us today our daily bread.
¹² And forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³ And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from the evil one. (Matthew 6:9-13, NIV)

I believe we all want to sing, to have hope. Hope seems to be the one commodity to be in short supply. As Christians, we carry the song of hope. We are not always up; we are, at times, down in the valley, and we have a song, but we don’t feel like singing. However, Peter says we should be ready to give voice to the hope that is in us.

. . . Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, . . .. I Peter 3:15, NIV.

We have the song of hope, who is Jesus Christ. You may not sing on a train today, but God may lead you to someone who needs to hear the song of hope. We don’t need a ukulele, but we do need the Spirit. Be ready to sing the song of hope to those who ask!

They need to hear the song you sing.

Dr. James D. Allen