Sing Right Now | Part 2

You know that feeling when you make a new year’s resolution only to let yourself down two weeks in? That is kind of how I felt with this Psalm 126 series. I made a bold statement to do a six-week series on this collection of verses only to get one post in and then never seem to find my way back to a blank word document.

I started counseling last month (another post for another day) but my counselor caught it the very time we met – I am a perfectionist. Now to all my fellow perfectionist, you know how the story goes: obsessing over every little thing, things can always be better, nothing seems to be good enough etc. People seem to perceive that perfectionist are the ones who never stop being proactive but what I have found is that often the perfectionist is the one paralyzed by their fear of failure, making them the stagnant ones. Perfectionism doesn’t produce success. Perfectionism produces exhaustion. We allow ourselves to live in a place of weariness, regret, shame, and agitation when there is another way of living that is offered to those who are in Christ Jesus.

What if we shift our thinking from “what I do for people matters the most” to “the environment I create for people to be in matters the most.” What I give someone will always hold less lasting value compared to how I made someone feel.

The place WE are living in is going to be what people experience when they are around us. I am no longer okay with people experiencing the opposite of what Jesus intended for us to experience simply because I/we have been thinking the wrong way.

How do we make the shift? How does the atmosphere around us become different?

Grace and Peace.

1 Corinthians 1:3

2 Peter 1:2

2 Corinthians 1:2

Philippians 1:2

Ephesians 1:2

All of these references use the phrase “grace and peace.” There is such significance to the order of the wording. Notice that grace always come first. Living in grace will always reap a seed of peace. The opposite of living in perfectionism is living in grace. Living in grace will transform the atmosphere into one of peace. Yes, do it for those around you, but also do it for you. The Lord longs for you to experience moments, days, and a lifestyle of peace. There is no room for our striving of perfectionism when His perfection is adequately on display in our life. There is no room for fear of failure when we see that our failures will always be engulfed by the immensity of His grace. To experience peace is not just to experience a feeling, it is to experience a person – Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

I’ll be honest, I have been frustrated with the fact I haven’t had as much time to write but I see so clearly now that words that are forced will never have as much significance as words that are prompted by a stirring of the Holy Spirit. So today, I hope these words land with grace and peace and I hope that you can be encouraged that sometimes the answer isn’t no it is just not now.

With all of that being said, the study of Psalm 126 is still happening! I will not hold a deadline over my head like last time. It will come when it comes and I believe that when it comes it will be just the right time. I am PUMPED to dive into verse two with you today. If you need a refresher or if you are just joining us, you can check out the first part here.

“Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy.” Psalm 126:2

We learned from verse one that the Jewish community had just returned from exile in Babylon. King Cyrus had decreed they could return to their home in Jerusalem. At this point, we know a couple things about the Jewish people. We know from looking at Psalm 137 that their captors would ask them to sing songs. Scripture actually says they demanded songs of joy. But what came from the mouths of the Jewish people wasn’t a song of joy. It was a song of weeping and desperate prayers for God to help them remember.

I don’t know if the Jewish people realized it but even then they were singing a song. It was one of honesty, longing, and pain. You might believe that the only songs God wants to hear from us are the ones of joy. But when you look at the book of Psalm as a whole, you can see that is simply not true. Time after time David’s words would be filled with questions, doubts, and frustrations. Do not believe the lie that you have been banished from singing just because you are weeping or that you cannot sing because of your weeping. We can rest on the truth that God hears it all. He doesn’t dismiss the songs that come with weeping. He doesn’t turn a deaf ear to us. When words don’t come, He knows exactly what those tears streaming down your face are saying. You can still sing.

“a time to weep and a time to laugh…” Ecclesiastes 3:4

[Songs of weeping make the songs of joy come out even louder.]

That is exactly what is happening here in verse 2. The Jewish people always had something coming out of their mouths (like mentioned above). Weeping and desperate prayers, but something was always coming out. Communication with the Lord is always vital despite how it sounds or looks like. They never closed their mouths and they did not have to enter into a process of relearning how to speak. They already knew how to sing because they had been doing it, so when the time came for a song of joy to rise up out them they were ready. The question for some of us today is: “do I know how to sing?” It doesn’t matter what it sounds like, it just matters that you do it. It matters that you do it so that when the new song starts to rise up out of you, you know how to deliver it.

Sing right now. Learn right now. It is more about persistence than it is the place.  

For the first time in seventy years, the Jewish people had a reason to sing a song of joy. They didn’t run through all the reasons why God should have come through sooner. They just sang. Maybe it is because they knew that there is no truth in the phrase “God should have come through sooner.” God comes through exactly when He is supposed to. His timing is always perfect.

Today, if you find yourself singing a song that includes a lot of weeping, oh I pray that you know God will arrive and it will be at just the right time. But more than that, I pray that you know a song of joy will one day be yours. He promises….

“He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.” Job 8:21

Sing on. He hears you.

“And I will sing till the miracle comes.” –Hillsong United 

Reflect:

1. Are you living in peace or perfectionism?
2. What kind of song do you think you are singing right now – a song of joy or a song of weeping?
3. Have you let yourself believe the lie: God should have showed up sooner.”