Sing a new song

 I love singing! My husband laughs often as in the midst of conversation a word or phrase will bring to mind a song and I can’t help but sing it! Our house is always full of singing and music whether it is Paul’s, mine or our daughter - whose love for music is a strange and eclectic mix of The Wiggles, worship music, classical music and bagpipes! 

I love singing in worship too and have enjoyed singing in choirs, worship bands and being a part of corporate worship. Worship and singing is pretty important in the bible too, with over 185 songs penned by a variety of writers and three books devoted to them in Psalms, Lamentations and Songs of Solomon. 

The songs in the bible have many different topics including; Victory in battle, formation of covenants, lament, the death of friends, praise, romance, prophecy and waiting, to name but a few. 

There are four beautiful songs in the bible that were written by powerful women of God. The songs of Miriam, Deborah, Hannah and Mary. Each of these women had different stories and different challenges, but each had a reason to praise God through song. 

Recently while preparing for my moms in the making support group, I had one of those moments where something I have read 500 times before suddenly jumps off the page and comes alive. It was a simple phrase found often in the Psalms:

“sing to the Lord a new song!”

Psalm 33 begins: 

“Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous;

It is fitting for the upright to praise him.

Praise the Lord with the harp,

Make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre

Sing to him a new song;

Play skilfully and shout for joy!”

Psalm 149:1 Says:

“Praise the Lord

Sing to the Lord a new song,

His praise in the assembly of his faithful people.”

We are called not only to praise God with singing, but to sing a brand new song!

Looking at the women in the bible who sang to God we see that although they all bring praise, declare the largeness of God and talk about what he has done, Deborah didn’t sing Miriam’s song,  Hannah didn’t sing Deboah’s song and Mary didn’t sing Hannah’s song. They each sang a brand new song. Spurgeon said:

“There must be new songs on new occasions of triumph”

As I pondered this idea, I considered: 

We each have a song to sing and it brings God glory. The enemy wants us to stay silent as our song has power. He will tell us our song isn’t important, we can’t sing it well enough or it’s not as good as someone else. The enemy is a liar…You need to sing!

We each have a song to sing. It might be a song or praise or a song of lament, a song of victory or a song of sorrow. But your song is unique! You cannot go through life singing someone else’s song. The song might not look how you thought it would and it might not look like everyone around you, but it is the song that God has given you to sing. 

God calls us to sing a new song, not the song that was sung 10 years ago. Lamentations 3:22-23, a book of songs, declares:

“It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is thy faithfulness.” 

God’s mercies are new, so we always have a new song to sing! 

Sometimes we get caught singing the song of victories past, and while it is great to remember what the Lord has done before we can’t get so focused on our old songs that we forget to sing a new one. 

Today the challenge is…What is your new song?