With God's Help: Devotions from Time of GraceMostra

Sing a new song

We try so hard to get our lives under control--our finances, our family, our jobs--but things keep breaking down. You know what it’s like to sing the blues, when the lyrics are groans, sighs, and bitter complaints. Maybe some of those blues lyrics have been part of your prayers that you were sending to heaven, imploring God to intervene and change your world.

But then--shock! He does answer your prayers in the way you’d hoped, or even better than you’d thought possible. Suddenly your song lyrics change: “I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God” (Psalm 40:1-3).

The Bible uses that phrase “new song” at least eight times to describe the worship response from a believer who is grateful for grace, grateful to be pulled out of a pit he couldn’t escape on his own. When your financial stresses ease, when a friendship is restored, when you hear “I love you” instead of “I hate you,” when you hear words of pardon for your miserable sins, there can be no better response than to give God the credit and sing him a new song.