The giver of new songs to sing

I had engaged in one horrific battle with my husband and God. And I didn’t win. 

Even though I’d refused to unpack, I now had to unpack. 

Even though I’d shouted at my husband, “We are leaving,” we were not leaving. 

Yet big things, good new things, were going on behind the scenes, stuff I didn’t recognize that afternoon or even in the weeks to come. 

Those good, big things would become clearer over time. In the meantime, I just had to keep doing the next thing, and then the next thing. I had to keep unpacking, putting one numb foot in front of the other numb foot. 

Let me tell you some of the lovely things God was doing behind the scenes: 

He stood beside me there in that hot little brick house under blistering sun in the middle of nowhere in South America. If I could have heard God’s voice, I’d have heard him say, “Look at this new thing I am about to do. It’s already happening. Don’t you see it?” (Isaiah 43:19, NCV) 

Because of what He was doing, in only a matter of weeks I’d be able to say, “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 the mire; he set my foot 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, NIV) 

To get me to that good place, that rock, that firm place to stand, He had to help me mature as a wife, mother, and Christian. It would take hard work on my part to cooperate with Him. 

When I think of my need to mature, I think of Jesus’ words, “I am the true vine; my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that does not produce fruit. And he cleans and trims every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit.” (John 15:1–2, NCV)

 

Yes, some of my “branches” would have to be cut off—the worthless ones. I’d have to:

• let go of unreasonable expectations
• get rid of incorrect assumptions
• recognize untruths I was believing and reject them
• stop saying “I can’t do this, I won’t do this.”
• stop saying, “God, You got this all wrong!”
• get rid of my bad attitude

 

Yes, those were some of the dead branches God would have to prune out.

 

And then let’s look at those other branches Jesus spoke of—the good branches. I take comfort in what Tim Challies points out: that “the Father trims every branch that bears fruit. Suffering, then, is not a sign of God’s disapproval but his approval, for it is the branches that are already bearing that he carefully cuts.” It’s comforting to think that, apparently, I was not completely rotten to the core.

 

Tim also says, “He looks after us with all the attentiveness of a gardener who longs to see His vine bear fruit. He tends us, He nourishes us, and when necessary He prunes us. And though we do not welcome those times when pains cut deep into our souls, we have this confidence: No hand but His ever holds the shears.

 

"If it is our loving gardener who does the pruning,” Tim continues, “we can be sure there are never any careless cuts. Though we may not know why this branch has had to be trimmed or that one removed, we do know the One who wields the blade.” (Click to read Tim’s post, No Hand But His Ever Holds the Shears.)  

 

I had to be willing to let God prune my branches, both the ones producing fruit and those that were not.

 

I had to once again—as much as was humanly possible—let God take first place in my life.

 

And, as Sarah Hilkemann so wisely points out:

 

"You will have to reach this point over and over,

this willingness to just say, ‘Here I am, Lord.’

Here I am, to do what feels impossible,

to stay when [I] just want to leave. . . .

‘Here I am, Lord’ will not be a once-and-done call, 

but a daily surrender to love right where you are."

(“No Strings Attached”) 

Hope. Hope is what God asks of us. Hope in Him. Hope in what we can become in Him, hope in what He can do even when we’re in our darkest hours. 

Though I could barely sense it, God was at work. In His loving grace, He can do His profoundest work in our biggest struggles. 

Even on that shattering afternoon,

God was putting a new song in my heart.

Hooray!