I have always enjoyed singing. I never heard my Dad sing a note, but I’m sure my mother sang lullabies to me when I was a baby. My love for singing began when I started to school and in assembly we sang songs like “Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream” and “London bridge is falling down.” And another of my favorites --“Reuben, Reuben, I’ve been thinking. What a great world this would be if the boys were all transported far across the Northern sea!”
In high school my mother encouraged me to take voice lessons taught by a famous Alabama soprano, Florence Golson Bateman. I was too young to appreciate the privilege of being taught to sing well by an accomplished musician and composer who would be inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame in 2000. I do remember being amazed that though she had been blind since age 15, Mrs. Bateman seemed happily engaged in teaching teenagers like me to sing. She also composed several songs, including “The Bird with a Broken Wing,” which she dedicated to Helen Keller.
The gifted singer taught me to sing delightful songs like “On the Road to Mandalay,” “O Holy Night,” and “Invictus.” Ever since then it is never truly Christmas until I hear someone sing “O Holy Night.” Often when no one is listening, I enjoy singing some of the enthralling words of those songs, like these:
On the road to Mandalay
Where the flyin’ fishes play
And the dawn come up like thunder
Out of China ‘cross the bay
Frank Sinatra made that song popular but I don’t think he ever broke out singing these captivating words from “Invictus”:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
I had no idea back then that as my faith matured, I would
arrive at a different stance than the composer, Willian Ernest Henley. His song concluded with these defiant words:
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
In my faith journey I was inspired to surrender my life to Jesus and embrace him as the Captain of my soul. That is a decision made possible by the grace and glory of God for all who choose to love and serve Jesus.
God loves singing or he would not have made so many birds. There are billions of birds in the world, six for every person on earth. Many of them sing. When I was a boy I loved to sit quietly under a tree in the woods behind my home and listen to the birds and watch the busy squirrels. It was fun to exchange sounds with the mockingbirds. Later I learned that male mockingbirds sing in search of a mate. It’s funny now to think that I was engaging sounds with a male who assumed I was a potential mate.
I love songs that stimulate my pride in our country. My patriotism is never stronger than when I hear an orchestra playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” or Ray Charles singing “America
the Beautiful,” or Timothy Miller, the opera tenor, singing “God Bless America” at an Atlanta Braves baseball game. Those songs remind me to thank God for the ways he continues to bless America.
Actually singing is second nature to humans. Mothers (and fathers) love to sing nursery rhymes to their children. Most mothers can recall singing to their babies “Incy Wincy Spider,” “Mary had a little Lamb,” “Hush little Baby,” and “Old MacDonald had a farm.”
And most likely “Jesus Loves Me.” I remember singing lullabies to our boys when they were babies.
The Bible teaches us that God loves to hear his people singing. When Christians worship, they start singing. Three
thousand years ago Israel’s King David wrote many songs, called psalms, that God’s people began singing. In Psalm 100, we find these words: “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.”
Many songs allow us to praise God, giving thanks for all his blessings.
When my friend Diane Scott began playing her beautiful harp in our church worship services, I thought about David’s words in Psalm 147 – “Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; make music to our God on the harp.” In Psalm 146 David said, “I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.” And he concludes the 150 Psalms with this stirring admonition: “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.”
Years later the Apostle Paul wrote to the Colossians, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and
spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God” (3:16).
Yes, God loves my singing not because my singing is better than that of others but because he loves the singing of all his people when they lift their voices to praise him in song.
So the next time your hardships are driving you into despair, remember God loves to hear you sing. Start singing “My Jesus, I love thee, I know are mine,” or “I love you Lord and I lift my voice to worship you, Oh my soul rejoice.”
Take it from me: Jesus will come to you, put his arms around you, restore your hope and give you peace. He’s done it for me and I believe he will do it for you. Trust him and sing. He loves to hear you sing of your need of him, and your love for him.