The Well

SING PRAISE TO HIS NAME

It has been some time since I have seen the Lord's justice at work in my life, but that's okay, I know He is constantly at work behind the scenes. He sees the big picture while we only see fragments.

From the time I was a very, very little girl, singing has been a huge part of my life. I sang my first solo at East Thomas Baptist Church when I was about three years old. I can even remember sitting on the first pew just before it was time for me to get up and sing. I even remember what I was wearing. Isn't that just awesome? That's how important singing is to me.

Before the word "latchkey" key became popular ¾ I was one back in the 50s. The first thing I always did was turn on the record player (that's what they were called), pull an old stool out in the middle of the floor, climb up on it in front of the living room mirror, get my faithful empty roll of toilet paper, and sing! I could be anybody I wanted to be as I gazed into that mirror and sang my heart out.

Lately, I've realized my days of singing are over, at least publicly speaking. My church requires total faithfulness at every service and with my health problems ¾ well, that's just about an impossibility. So, minus the stool, the record player, and a mirror, I will simply go into the privacy of bedroom with my faithful Karaoke machine and sing praises to His name because I know He is just and He is merciful.

As I made the decision, that this was my future, an awesome sense of quiet happened. The Lord reminded me of a reading from Oswald Chamber's, "We respond gently when evil things are said about us. Yet we are treated like the world's garbage, like everybody's trash ¾ right up to the present moment." In many instances this is true. Many times God calls us to a time of sickness or suffering; a wilderness. Oswald says we should be able to say, "I don't care if I am treated like 'the filth of the world,' as long as the gospel is proclaimed."

Following Jesus' glorious baptism God called Him to the wilderness. Following God's beautiful exhibition of power through His servant Elijah, Elijah ran to the wilderness. In "Streams in the Desert," a statement just stunned me, "God shines His light on you to make you fit for life's deserts...He illuminates you so He may send you into the night, making you a help to the helpless. You are not always worthy of the wilderness ¾ you are only worthy of the wilderness after the splendor of the Jordan River experience." Wow!

The helpless need a friend who understands a Jesus with skin on. Henri J. M. Nouwen, in "The Wounded Healer" said, "A man can keep his sanity and stay alive as long as there is at least one person who is waiting for him." Will you be that one person for someone today? When we truly believe that in our weakness He is strong, the eternal prize is joy in Jesus! Let's praise Him in our weakness with singing!