Written by:
Kim Bausinger, Chapter Development Director
You are sitting there, trying to find the worship in your soul. You think you hear the beginning cords, but then that voice comes. The reminder of why you shouldn’t be worthy enough to sing. And your chorus dies away. Has this happened to you? I know it’s happened to me more often than I care to admit. You are going along fine, then you do something that is not pleasing to God, and you want to run and hide. You don’t want to be the one that’s singing out of tune, because everyone will know! Satan sneaks in, and you just quit singing.
We are talking this month in LeadHer about David worshipping God in Psalm 40. Verse 3 talks about David’s new song. “He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God”. When I read this, I immediately had a list of questions. I wanted to know why David needed a new song? What was wrong with the old one? Was it too sad, or whiny, or was Satan in his head hindering the song?
If you start at the beginning of the chapter, David talks about waiting patiently on the Lord, about being lifted out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire, and having his feet set back on solid ground. But what was his pit? When you think about David, and possible reasons he could be repenting to God from a pit, you can come up with a list. Bathsheba and Uriah were probably at the top. Nothing like stealing your friend’s wife, then sending the friend off to be killed to make a few bad notes in your song! But that isn’t what was going on when David wrote this psalm. Psalm 40 is written at the end of David’s life. He was at the end of his reign, his good health, and years of turmoil and battles. He was looking back over his life, possibly processing how it could have gone differently. So what can we learn from David and changing our song?
The first thing to notice is what David hadn’t done. He hadn’t stopped singing. He obviously was singing from his mud and mire pit, because he didn’t say God gave him a song, but a NEW song. He didn’t let the voices in his head, that said he wasn’t enough, stop his song. Let me just say right here, those voices that are trying to stop you from singing, they are an attack from the enemy. God has designed us to crave to worship Him. The one telling you to be quiet, because God doesn’t want to hear you, is a liar. Sometimes our song needs to be a song of repentance, but God is faithful in that. Sometimes our song needs to be a song of honest insecurity, and if we are singing it to God, He can do something with it. The key is to keep on singing.
The second thing I noticed was that David recognized the need for, and the offering of a new song. I know a few people that God has offered and offered a new song, but they refuse to change. Their tune is one that focuses on the mud, and not the One that pulled them from the mud. You can look and see all of the ways God has blessed them, but they can only see that there was once a mucky pit. Do you think God ever looks at us like we are ungrateful children on Christmas morning? That moment where you swear you are taking everything back to the store, and the ingrates can go play with rocks in the driveway!!! How dare we not be willing to change our song!! Just the fact that Jesus came to make a path for us to be restored to God should be reason enough. The act of God offering us a new chance, and a new song shows us how He wants nothing but the best for His children. Don’t be ungrateful. Accept the new song.
Last let me encourage you, like David did, to sing a song of praise. God is faithful dear ones. Faithful yesterday, faithful today, faithful tomorrow. He doesn’t abandon us in the pit, even if it’s one of our own making. He is always there listening for you to call out to Him. Just like he didn’t leave David in the pit permanently, he won’t leave you there forever either. Now I am not saying that you won’t have to wait patiently, and call out to Him, but He is right there with you every muddy step of the way. We aren’t made to only sing from the mountain tops, but from the pits as well. Your yesterday’s, if repented of, are gone. Today is a brand new day. So sing your song of praise to the Most High God. Sometimes the acoustics are best in the pit!