The Singing God

(My apologies.  I have lost the post I prepared for today.  This illustration focuses of a prayer that was used in an earlier devotional).

Susan was on the verge of emotional collapse.  So she went to her pastor for help.  She revealed that her father was an emotional tyrant.  He said, ‘if you look pretty, I will love you.’  ‘If you make good grades, I’ll love you.’  If you are successful and helpful, and don’t embarrass me in front of others, I’ll love you.’  Her father’s love was very conditional, and she always experienced his distain and criticism.  As a result she found it hard to believe that there is a God who is kind and gracious, who would give his precious Son so that we could be his dearly loved children.  Although she had responded to God’s love, it seemed too good to be true.

For an hour that pastor laboured to convince Susan of the love of her heavenly Father.  Then he read from Zephaniah.  ‘The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing' (Zeph. 3:17).  ‘That’s how God looks at you Susan!  He looks at you, he thinks of you … and he sings for joy.’

He read it again.  ‘The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing' (Zeph. 3:17).  She responded.  ‘If only I could believe it were true.  I think I could face almost anything.  If only it were true.’

If you have responded to the truth of the gospel, yet find the truth of your singing God too good to believe, I have a prayer for you. ‘I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and established in love, may have the strength to grasp with all God’s people what is the length and breadth and height and depth is the love of Christ, which surpasses all understanding, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God’ (Eph. 3:14-19).