New Songs for a New Day
Thursday (December 4)
New Songs for a New Day
Psalm 96:1
Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth!
Isn’t it amazing how certain songs of the faith never grow old? You’d think that after a couple hundred years, we’d get tired of singing words like “amazing grace, how sweet the sound,” and “because He lives I can face tomorrow,” and “it is well with my soul.” In fact, I’m currently working on a 10-song worship album right now called Words in the Wounds, exulting in the thought that all of our sin and sorrow is immersed in the Passion of our Savior, that all the highs and lows of our mortal lives of faith are covered in the fathomless depths of His triumph, and while pondering the deep mysteries and majesties of so great and profound a spiritual reality, old hymns like “The Love of God” and “Be Thou My Vision” and “There is a Fountain” rushed back to my mind and I decided to adapt them into the record. New gospel hymns are inspired by old ones, just as new steps of faith emerge from past steps. So when David calls out to the entire cosmos and effectively commands, “Sing to the LORD a new song!”, he isn’t calling us to do away with the old songs, but rather calling us to sing to the LORD anew—afresh—whether we pen brand new lines or repeat cherished old ones. The call here is for us to open that alabaster jar of our hearts and pour out a fresh psalm of praise as a fragrant offering.
Nevertheless, don’t you find it astonishing to think that Almighty God never gets tired of hearing us sing? Think about it: songs get old to us real quick, don’t they? We need new hymns in our repertoire just to keep things fresh on a Sunday morning or on a Wednesday evening or on a long commute to work. But Almighty God could be hearing millions of people across the globe on a Sunday singing the same song, and He could hear it sung hundreds of times that same day, and thousands of times that week, yet He never turns the volume down or changes the channel. Marvel at that thought for a while today. That despite the thousands of ways we’ve let our LORD down throughout our lives of faith, He’s still accepting our praise.