Do You Sing In The Night?

“… God my maker, who gives songs in the night” Job 35:10 (NIV)

Songs normally follow victories. It is not natural to rejoice while our troubles last. Yet this is the privilege we have as God’s children. God gives songs to his children in the nights of life – the nights of weeping, difficulty, or trouble. These are those times when things seem impossible, when you have waited and waited and there seems to be no solution in sight. When things fail to go the way you hoped, and it seems foolish to go on hoping. Those are the times when God gives us songs.

It is like those three Hebrew young men – Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who incurred the wrath of the ungodly king and had to face fire. They threw them into the midst of the fire and I believe that the first thing God gave them were songs of peace right in the midst of the fire. God didn’t stop them from entering the fire but He gave them praise songs inside a blazing furnace!

God longs to fill us with peace and praise right in the midst of life’s storms. I recall having experienced this myself sometimes in my walk with the Lord. I remember one time just before marriage when I was trying to get a new job and transfer to another town. Everything had been working well – the vacancy was there, the establishment wanted me urgently, and the process of employment had begun moving. Then all of a sudden everything froze. They couldn’t locate my file, people became unco-operative and I was running out of time, money and hope. I prayed and prayed and nothing changed. Then one day in the midst of all the trouble, when there was still no hope in sight, I heard a song inside of me. Naturally I wasn’t feeling like singing, yet here was my heart bubbling with a song of praise. So I yielded to my heart and sang out the words.

“Everything is gonna be alright in Christ,

Everything is gonna be alright in Christ,

Lift your hands and praise His name,

For eternity the same,

For I know

Everything is gonna be alright in Christ”

Things didn’t change on that day. But things did change and I found that every word of that song came to pass. If we were to go by human reasoning you would expect God to give us the songs when the morning of victory has come to replace the nights of hopelessness. Yes we must sing when the victory comes, but this kind of song we are talking about here is not the type that victory brings, rather they are the types that bring the victory. When we accept these songs from God and sing them, they go ahead to release the victory.

Jehoshaphat understood this principle of ‘singing-in’ your victory. In 2 Chronicles 20:18, 19 (NIV) immediately he and the people heard God’s promises they “….. bowed … to the ground…. in worship before the LORD ……and praised the Lord, the God of Israel, with very loud voice! “. Note that their situation had not yet changed. They were still in danger. Oh, but their hearts had changed –from mourning to dancing – because they chose to believe God’s word. Note also, that their problem was not even solved the day they began singing. Yet the next day they went on singing. They were committed to praising God even though things didn’t seem to be getting better. Then, as they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against their enemies. As we receive and sing the songs God gives us in the night, we allow God to undertake for us.

The reason then that God wants to give us songs in the midst of the night is so as to help us walk in faith. He brings those songs to reassure us of His presence and to strengthen our faith. And He knows that as we sing even when we do not feel like it, we win. Please do remember to sing in the nights of life.