fighting to lay it down.

This is an email I received from our mission board today, and I happened to actually read the whole thing. This is exactly how I feel. More to come.
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Do you have a song in your heart today? You know what I’m talking about—the subliminal lyrics of a praise song you may have listened to a few days ago or a tune you find yourself humming that makes a routine task, driving to an appointment or even cleaning the house, a worship experience. It comes when you have just had a visionary planning meeting with your team, when you saw someone come to faith you had been cultivating for a long time, or when your children blurt out a comment that reveals maturing spiritual insight.

Unfortunately, there are days when the song is not there; in fact, we can lose it for extended periods of time when we are discouraged, fighting depression and counting the days, hoping to survive until stateside. I can remember losing the song in times of cultural shock and disillusionment. I thought that was unique to the second year on the field when the honeymoon was over, but found that it continued to come in cycles throughout our 23 years overseas.

You lose the song when family relations are strained, and harsh, unkind words are spoken out of anger and impatience. A misunderstanding with a colleague or seeing a disciple we have been nurturing revert to his old manner of life can rob us of the joy that is reflected in that spontaneous song reverberating in our mind.

In Ps 137 the Children of Isr*el had been carried into captivity in Babylon. There their tormentors demanded they sing the songs of Z*on, apparently for the entertainment of their captors. But they replied in verse 4, “How can we sing the L*rd’s song in a foreign land?” That’s how you may be feeling simply due to the heat and congested crowds. Or maybe you have lost the song due to struggling with a new structure and processes imposed by leaders that seem insensitive to the impact of changes being made.

How do you recover the song? How do you get back the joy, a sense of well-being, confidence that G*d is on His throne, and it’s all going to come out all right? There is an interesting verse in 2 Chron 29:27 that may offer an analogy that may be helpful. This is the occasion of restoring the temple worship. King Hezekiah gave the order to place the burnt offering on the altar. “And when the sacrifice began, the song to the L*rd also began.”

The call to an intimate relationship with the Father has always entailed sacrifice. It is a call to sacrifice our own will to be obedient to Him. J*sus makes it clear that no one is truly following Him until they take up their cross and die. Paul pleaded with us to present our bodies a living sacrifice—always putting our desires, our will, our comforts on the altar. It comes back to those prayers of relinquishment mentioned in an earlier memo.

We lose the song and the enemy robs us of joy that comes from confident faith in the Father when there is something we desire we don’t have—when our plans aren’t working out, the kids aren’t behaving or the team doesn’t respect our opinion. Maybe we aren’t receiving the recognition and affirmation we need, we are being inconvenienced or imposed on, or we are just working ourselves to the bone without seeing evident results.

In David’s confession of sin he recognized that G*d did not desire offerings and religious ritual, even hard work, as much as sacrifice. “The sacrifices of G*d are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O G*d, Thou wilt not despise.” That’s what brings us back to Him and restores the song.

If you are at the end of your rope, discouraged and disillusioned, you may be exactly where you need to be to find His grace and faithfulness. Bring that broken spirit and a contrite heart and lay it on the altar. Have you allowed self-centered concerns and personal desires to so dominate your attention that you have lost a broken heart for the lost that brought you to where you are in the first place?

We rationalize ourselves into thinking things would be fine and I would be happy if—only if—everyone would get along, we could handle finances and get our services provided more efficiently, if it weren’t so hot, if the people weren’t so obstinate, if we had a safer environment, more reliable electricity, etc. etc. Bemoaning the problems doesn’t solve them. Whatever is robbing you of the song, lay it on the altar. “When the sacrifice began, the song of the L*rd also began.”