Ok, so when you’ve no more to give because your giver is worn, torn, frazzled and frayed, and your song has left and taken your joy with it, just stop and rest in the delight of a sweet and serendipitous moment of quiet before our Lord. A precious moment you can grab out of that hectic space and furious pace that you try so frantically to keep in step with! Yeah, we just have to find one of those somewhere in our day don’t we? A precious time to sit and reflect on the good things we enjoy at the Lord’s good hand, in the midst of all the “All gone wrong.” It’s there where we can saturate ourselves in a grace so precious and so lovely that it warms our heart and soul. It’s there we can receive the Lord’s gift of quiet and peace, so necessary for our ministries, our families and our friends. It’s there, beautiful soul, where our giver is graced, refreshed, renewed and restored. It’s in His sweet presence where our joy returns on wings of song! It’s only then we can begin to give again. Proverbs 18: 16, reminds us “A gift opens the way for the giver and ushers Him into the presence of the great.” There is much good about us and around us, but sometimes our skies are so clouded with bleak worry and so heavy with care that those good things ~ well, they’re just not visible any longer and it’s confusing and discouraging when we aren’t sure which way is up or down. You’ve done what you could but it’s not enough and in our human strategy and ill effort, it never will be. You see, it’s not about us, contrary to popular belief out there in a world gone haywire. A crazy world that says it is about me, myself and I and at all cost, I will make it conform to my desires. But it’s not that at all and the more we try to fill the I in the equation the more disillusioned we become.
We can’t sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land ~ dry place, as the Psalmist laments in Psalm 137:4, “How can we sing the songs of the LORD, while in a foreign land?” They were held captive and had hung their harps on the poplar trees to weep and mourn for Zion, while their captors tormented them and demanded songs of joy. Oh when captive to our fear, worries and just plain discouragement, we dare not hang up our harps!! No, we pick it up! Take it in hand and find some kind of precious time to free our soul to sing a lullaby of love to the Heavenly Father! Right there in our quiet corner let Him lift us out of the ‘down low’ tormenting doldrums and into the heights of His glory even on our worn and weary days.
Yeah, you! Beautiful you, Pick up that harp once more! Grace your corner with its sweet sound. Meet with The LORD of heavens armies and watch the beauty of your giving spirit awaken to a new day!
“May all the kings of the earth praise you, O LORD, when they hear the words of Your mouth. May they sing of the ways of the Lord, for the glory of the Lord is great.” Psalm 138: 4,5
Hope and Healing In Hard Places 