Good morning…
After a fun filled weekend, God just woke me from sleep around 1:00 am, nudging me to read two emails which waited patiently in my inbox.
“As you know we are studying Discerning the Voice of God by Priscilla Shirer,” wrote a loyal leader of our Banquet Bible study, the longest running study at Northside Church, a group that has blessed so many women over the past twenty-some years. “Working on the study this morning, I came to a section where you came immediately to mind. It was talking about those whose spiritual walk ignited our own. I am attaching the section. It begins with ‘Here’s the repeated theme…’ and to the end of the paragraph. Thank you for the Spirit directed example you set.”
What a joy! Daily we delve deep into Scripture together, whetting our appetite for knowing its Author more intimately and seeing our living Lord actively orchestrating the rhythms of our everyday lives.
Next I read an email inviting our monthly Sunday class to join theologian and mystic Howard Thurman (1900–1981) as he prayed for the courage and ability to stay renewed over the course of his life with God.
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I Will Sing a New Song by Howard Thurman from Meditations of the Heart, 206–207
The old song of my spirit has wearied itself out. It has long ago been learned by heart so that now it repeats itself over and over, bringing no added joy to my days or lift to my spirit. It is a good song, measured to a rhythm to which I am bound by ties of habit and timidity of mind. The words belong to old experiences which once sprang fresh as water from a mountain crevice fed by melting snows. But my life has passed beyond to other levels where the old song is meaningless. I demand of the old song that it meet the need of present urgencies. Also, I know that the work of the old song, perfect in its place, is not for the new demand!
I will sing a new song. As difficult as it is, I must learn the new song that is capable of meeting the new need. I must fashion new words born of all the new growth of my life, my mind and my spirit. I must prepare for new melodies that have never been mine before, that all that is within me may lift my voice unto God. How I love the old familiarity of the wearied melody—how I shrink from the harsh discords of the new untried harmonies.
Teach me, my Father, that I might learn with the abandonment and enthusiasm of Jesus, the fresh new accent, the untried melody, to meet the need of the untried morrow. Thus, I may rejoice with each new day and delight my spirit in each fresh unfolding.
I will sing, this day, a new song unto Thee, O God.
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“I love this,” I replied. “It reminds me of the Our Music poem we read aloud in our first week of class hosted in our home. I will combine these writings for today’s blog post over the next few hours. Thanks again for sharing Thurman’s insight. What special words to buoy and inspire.”
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Our Music by Judy Brown
He said
our music
looks for us.
That which
is our essential
gift, our work,
hungers for us
as much as we hunger for it.
Our music seeks us
in the stillness,
so he said.
His words
have stayed with me,
reminding me
my task is not
to scramble,
searching for elusive craft,
but to quite simply wait.
My work is
to create a welcome –
still and silent –
in which my music
speaks.
******
We are each designed to create a welcome for the new ideas born from the new growth in our daily lives. As we wait, still and silent, God’s untried harmonies begin rising in us like the sun. May we learn new melodies that have never been ours before as we seek to draw the harsh discords of today into attunement with the God who loves us all.
For we are His workmanship [His own master work, a work of art], created in Christ Jesus [reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, ready to be used] for good works, which God prepared [for us] beforehand [taking paths which He set], so that we would walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us] (Ephesians 2:10, AMP).
…Sue…
