Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday January 30, 2008

While I was ruminating a quote about music came to mind. I do not know the author, but I may have said it in the long ago. Fat chance.

"Hope is the ability to hear the music of the future."

When the nation of Israel was carried away to Babylon, they were taunted by the Babylonians to "sing us a song now of your God." The captives answered back with, "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" Like many in today's world the chosen people had become frozen in the mistaken concept that the Joy of the Lord is limited to positive surroundings, to the stock market or to the mood of your spouse.

I fully realize that there is no use in thinking that some lives, perhaps mine, will be exempted from a storm here and there along the way. Into every life some rain must fall, and this is God's way of preventing the canvass of our life from becoming a waste howling wilderness. Learning to enjoy the rain, the tough times as precursors of better times is to begin to be a person who can retain inner joy even while those who choose to be enemies hold you up to ridicule.

When your spirit hears the music of the future, you are then able to sing the song of the Lord even in a strange land. Charles Weigle a preacher, who wrote many Christian songs, wrote one called, "No One Ever Cared For Me Like Jesus." He said the song came to him just when he was ready to leap into the raging Chattahoochee at flood time and end it all. His wife had divorced him taking the children, the other preachers for the most part wrote him off. Yet Dr. Weigle kept on trucking as best he could and in time the Lord brought him up from the existence of the living forsaken dead. I knew him when he was in his 90's and he in many ways testified that during that dark time Jesus enabled him to hear the music of the future, and thus keep on going for one more day, one more hour.

When you make the choice to sing the Lord's song, even in the strangest of lands, you are setting yourself up for victory in life. I often tease homesick folks with the statement of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:11 "Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." I simply say, Paul could be happy in Indiana, Kentucky, even California; the state did not matter, as long as his heart was fixed on heaven. Of course Paul was talking about poverty or wealth, about prison, where he sang the Lord's song at midnight, or shipwrecked, or living in his own hired house.

When it seems like life is giving you its worst shot, the biggest storm imaginable, the searing heartbreak of someone you love deeply giving you the kiss of Judas, your child is suddenly taken or your son or daughter is being slowly taken in agonizing pain over a extended time which seems like it will never end, and then when the last breath is expelled and the chill of death replaces lips that had been warm, you wonder; why? While tears scald your cheeks, while your heart burns within like a nuclear fire, you can sing the Lord's song if you will listen, with the ear of faith, and hear the music of the future.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2008 Use with credit.

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