There's a Song in the Air

In the first volume of his classic Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, CS Lewis portrays Narnia before the arrival of the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, and the subsequent thaw that heralds the coming of Aslan, as a land where it is “always winter and never Christmas.” Can anything be more dreadful to a child’s mind? Long frigid nights, shortened days colored dreary and gray, cold winds imposing their will on bare trees that can only creak in mournful complaint, week after tiresome week of school with Christmas vacation far from view, snow, ice, chill, and more snow, … Hold on a minute, that sounds a lot like winter in Michigan this year. To make matters worse, with the writers’ strike, I have to endure winter without some of my favorite television programs! (sigh)

Indeed, winter has maintained a relentless grip on us this year. Since early December, it seems creation has been chastising us with one wintry blast after another. In fact, we have had so many snow storms, ice events, and arctic temps on Saturday nights these past 8-10 weeks that I am very nearly convinced our enemy, the prince of the power of the air no less, has specifically targeted pastors’ hearts with this weather cycle and its impact on folks coming together on Sundays for worship and fellowship.

Take heart, beloved! I have some wonderful news! A most gladsome sound has reached my ear this week, a song with indiscernible lyrics but a most clear message in the melody. Three times this week, after long, cold nights, I have been greeted in the morning with the singing of birds! They have begun to greet the dawn just outside my bedroom window. Birds singing in the morning – surely the grip of winter must soon break!

They sang again this morning. They were still singing at mid-morning when a home health care professional visited my father-in-law. From my study, I heard him comment as well on the aviary arias (a fancy reference on my part to birdsong). He called the day “delightful” and declared it was especially so because of the birds singing.

Delightful – snow-covered, frosty, but delightful. The power of hope fascinates me. How marvelous that dreariness can be so easily transformed into delight. How magically hope warms our hearts, thaws our spirits from the icy clutch of despair, and stokes the embers of our courage so that we can trudge forward! When I had nearly resigned myself to give in to the gloom, hopeful whispers of joy steady me and stir me to look upward and outward again.

I find particularly intriguing today the messengers God often uses to transport hope from the holy majesty of His love to the humdrum monotony of our lives. The heralds He employs are not often grand, glorious, or awesome. Rarely does Father announce His graces and mercies into my life with the trumpets of angels or the rolling back of the skies like a curtain or anything my limited imagination might equate with a God-sized, heavenly declaration. He does not often bowl me over in dim or dark with an explosion of bright light. Instead, He seems to favor first dispelling the darkness and preparing my eyes to adjust with the softer glow of candles. He uses birdsong to melt the ice on my soul.

Seems to me God frequently introduces flickers of hope and joy with small and common things, hardly conspicuous and rarely ornate. Whether in plain sight or public hearing of any who would notice, God invites us to remember He is Who He says He is. He would remind anyone who would pay attention that He can, always has, and surely will continue to do what He says He can do. Winter may not want to let go, but let go it must, because God has ordained it so.

One man once heard God’s invitation to him when he was in the deepest throes of despair, a severe winter of the soul. What is particularly striking is how Aurelius Augustinus heard God call. The man, who would become better known to us as Saint Augustine, found himself weeping uncontrollably, in fitful despair at his failure to reconcile his heart with his mind and with his lifestyle. Try as he had, he could not find a truth that would liberate his soul from the emptiness his choices left him. Then he heard a child-like voice chanting what sounded like a nursery rhyme from beyond the garden where Augustine sat. The child sang, “Tolle, lege” – “take up and read.” He retrieved a copy of Paul’s epistles and began to read. God’s Word came alive for him that moment, and he finally found hope, joy, and new life in Christ that day. The messenger God used? Apparently, the instrument of God’s invitation to Augustine was a child singing a children’s song.

Have you ever thought God might desire to use you to be someone’s song? I believe He would use each of us if we were available to Him. His employment of us for eternal ends may very likely be so subtle, however, that even we, His instruments, might not recognize the impact of the song He sings through us to another person. Consider, for instance, an incident David Bruce reported to us in our prayer service Wednesday night.

While setting up his Pepsi display at the Speedway on Nine Mile and Pontiac this week, David nudged one two-liter over, which led to the whole stack rolling across the floor. As he set himself to picking up the mess, he thought how people just tend to walk on by rather than help one another. Then, to his surprise, someone stooped down and began to help him. When they looked at each other, they thought they recognized one another. As it turns out, David’s unexpected assistant, and God’s song of hope to him that day, also attends First Baptist Church – a young man named Nick! With no side-glances at God to get His favor, Nick simply saw a need and met a need. The result was a thawed, thankful heart.

“In the same way, let your light shine before men, so that they may … give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

Pastor Rob