Worship - October 2019
Church Family,
This month, I wanted to share some encouragement with you from Zephaniah 3:17. The word says,
“The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in You; in His love He will no longer rebuke you, but He will rejoice over you with singing.”
There is so much we could mention about this verse. Our God is a warrior, mighty to save. He delights in His children. These are enough reasons alone to worship Him. But I want to reflect on the last part of this verse, which says, “He will rejoice over you with singing.” Did you know that God sings? Not only does God sing, but also He sings over you. He delights and rejoices in singing over His children. This is an amazing truth. God delights in our singing. We are commanded to sing, and God is honored by the praises of His people. But like a Good Father, He sings over us.
This makes me think about my daughter. There was a night, not too long ago, that my wife and I were putting our daughter to sleep. The typical routine is that once our daughter Presley is in her crib, either my wife or I will sing to her until she falls asleep. On this night, my wife was doing the singing, and I was standing still in the corner of the room, trying not to make any noise. If you know anything about toddlers, it’s that they don’t want to go to sleep. Bedtime means no more playtime, and they would much rather have playtime. So as my wife was singing, my daughter was crying. Nothing was wrong; she just didn’t want to go to sleep. Fair enough.
I started to get restless. Should I pick her up? As her daddy, should I pick her up and give her cookie and do whatever she wants? To my shame, I love giving her what she wants. But my wife just kept singing. Presley kept crying, tossing and turning, and my wife just kept singing calmly and peacefully. Eventually, Presley became calm as well, and then she fell asleep.
I won’t forget that night, because I saw myself in my daughter. How many times am I in a season of life that makes me want to scream, toss, and turn? How many times would I rather be doing things I want to do, rather than what God wants me to do? Yet in the hardest time, God is singing over me. He never gets restless, He never gets angry. He sings over me. He gives me peace. My prayer is that you would realize God’s love for you. I pray you would feel His peace, and experience His mercy. He is singing over you. Lean into His presence, there’s not much quite like it.
In Christ,
Jared