This month, our meditation has been excerpted from the book entitled Extreme Devotion, compiled by Voice Of the Martyrs. In the following passage, the account of a Christian Pastor in a Communist prison provides us with fodder for reflection and perhaps application:
Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. (Psalm 95:1)
"Why is it that so many Christians sing only once a week? Why only once? If it is right to sing, sing every day. If it is wrong to sing, don't sing on Sunday."
The pastor had spent several horrifying years in prison at the hands of the Communist authorities. He was jailed for his belief in Christ, and though he remembered the tortures there, he did not focus on them much. Instead, he spoke of the times of joy in the presence of his Lord. He and his fellow Christian prisoners formed a community of praise--in the middle of prison.
"When we were in prison, we sang almost every day because Christ was alive in us. The Communists were very nice to us. They knew we liked to praise God with musical instruments, so they gave every Christian in prison a musical instrument. However, they did not give us violins or mandolins--these were too expensive. Instead, they put chains on our hands and feet. They chained us to add to our grief. Yet we discovered that chains are splendid musical instruments! When we clanged them together in rhythm, we could sing, 'This is the day (clink, clank), this is the day (clink, clank), which the Lord has made (clink, clank).'" What a joyful noise unto the Lord!
FURTHER: To those who have yet to experience it, persecution seems to focus entirely on loss. The loss of freedom. The loss of hope. Even losing one's life. However, those who have suffered for their faith in Christ overlook what's missing and focus on new discoveries. They relish what little freedoms they have, instead of regretting what they lack. In this story, Communist captors robbed believers of most of life's freedoms and dignity. However, these stout believers focused on what remained--their joy in the Lord. If it is good to sing to the Lord when you have everything--it is good to sing to Him when you have lost it all, too. What will you do today to make sure you do not lose your Christian joy?
A moment of consideration: Someone has said that "hope sees God, when eyes see suffering". There is truth in that short quip; hope sees beyond the prison cells, the fetid and garbage-strewn streets of population centers around the world. Hope sees the promise of the Lord. In Romans 5:2-5, the apostle Paul understood hope as being a product of suffering--a result of suffering, endurance, and the personal asset of character. Later, as he continued to address the Believers in the Roman Church, Paul said we can rejoice in such hope, as we patiently endure tribulation and, with constancy, look to God in prayer (Romans 12:12). In John 16:20, Jesus spoke with His disciples about their building sense of looming loss at His ascension. He said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy." Suffering always seems to result in loss, as the 'Further' notes reported, above. Yet Jesus said our sorrow might well turn us to rejoicing.
I think of Fanny Crosby, an American mission worker, poet, lyricist, and composer. A prolific hymnist, she wrote more than 8,000 hymns and gospel songs.
She was famous among her friends for her happy attitude toward life. No one ever heard her sitting back, complaining over the darkness of her days. A friend in England thought she knew the reason Miss Crosby could be so happy and brave, and the friend wrote the following:
Sweet blind singer across the sea,
Tuneful and jubilant, how can it be?
That the songs of gladness, which float so far,
As if it fell from the evening star.
Are the notes of one who never may see visible music of flowers and tree?
How can she sing in the dark like this?
What is her fountain of light and bliss?
Her heart can see, her heart can see!
May long she sing so joyously!
For the Lord himself in his tender grace
Hath shown her the brightness of his face.
Blindness is a form of loss. One might think Fanny would have been morose and sullen as she despaired in her unseeing world. Yet that did not happen, and she wrote beautiful music despite her suffering such loss. The Christian Pastor imprisoned by the Communists would have agreed with the message of a popular hymn from recent years, entitled "How Can I Keep From Singing?"
My life flows on in endless song,
above earth's lamentation.
I catch the sweet, though far-off hymn
that hails a new creation.
Refrain:
No storm can shake my inmost calm
while to that Rock I'm clinging.
Since Love is Lord of heav'n and earth,
how can I keep from singing?
Through all the tumult and the strife,
I hear that music ringing.
It finds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing? [Refrain]
What though my joys and comforts die,
I know my Savior liveth.
What though the darkness gather round?
Songs in the night He giveth. [Refrain]
The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,
a fountain ever springing!
All things are mine since I am his!
How can I keep from singing? [Refrain]
How can we keep from singing? Paul wrote to the Church members in the city of Philippi, and basically said the same thing. He told those Christians, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!" (Philippians 4:4) Indeed, why is it that so many Christians sing only once a week? Why only once? If it is right to sing, sing every day. If it is wrong to sing, don't sing on Sunday. The Christian Pastor of this anecdote, said they used to sing nearly every day--without musical instruments. Except, he said, for the provided percussion of the prisoners' chains. Not all Christian prisoners are privileged to have such 'accommodating' guards, for their music-making. Some Christians find they must sing silently when they cannot sing vocally; these are Believers who worship silently in repressive countries. It's a good habit to regularly voice praise to our God; but if your infant or young child is asleep, if the patients are resting on your assigned hospital ward, if you're at a schoolboard meeting--when we cannot sing out loud, praise the Lord sotto voce (softly, silently). Christians, it is your duty not only to be good, but to shine; and, of all the lights which you kindle on the face, joy will reach farthest out to sea, where troubled mariners are seeking the shore. Even in your deepest grieving, rejoice in God. As waves phosphoresce, let joys flash from the swing of the sorrows of your souls.
In 1 Peter 4:13-16, the apostle Peter wrote to his Christian readers, acknowledging their suffering, instructed them to "rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name."
Rejoicing amid trials (James 1:2-4) may require focusing our hearts and minds, and souls, rightly. An anonymous Christian wrote of his hospital experience with two terminally ill individuals:
He wrote, "I squirmed a bit as I forced myself to listen to my friend cataloging her problems. After three hours, I interrupted her gently to ask, 'If you were to draw a circle to represent your life, what would be in the center?'
She thought for a moment, then said, 'My problems.' My friend spoke the truth.
A week later, I sat across the hospital bed on which lay my younger sister, Joye, who had just been diagnosed with acute leukemia. Gray and perspiring, with a swath of bandages encasing her throat from a biopsy, Joye talked to a student nurse who was interviewing terminally ill people to see if there was any way she could help them.
'Oh, Jan, I'm a bit fearful of the pain and process of dying--but I'm not afraid of death! It'll just be a change of residence for me,' I heard my sister, her face radiant from within, say to this student nurse. And for forty-five minutes, Joye explained the good news of Jesus Christ to Jan.
Afterward, I thought...both my friend and sister have serious problems. Yet one's walking in despair, and the other in joy. What makes the difference?
Then I realized what it was. My friend's heart was occupied with her problems; my sister's heart was occupied with the Living God.
To have our hearts occupied with the Living God, is to have a great deal of mastery over occurrences and trials of many kinds in our lives. To have our minds anchored upon the Rock (Isaiah 26:3-4) and our hearts occupied with the Living Lord, is to have victory and ample reasons to rejoice over the trials and challenges we each face. Parents can teach children singing, as is done in preschool classrooms, using Orff Instruments; singing with rhythm can be not only enjoyable but as Mr. Gershwin wrote, 'I got rhythm; I got music...Who could ask for anything more?' Rhythm and music can accompany soaring faith in, and praise of, the Lord Jesus Christ. This day, though it might hold joys or sorrows, has been made by our Lord; let's rejoice, sing and be glad in it! (Psalm 118:24) The joy of the Lord is our strength!