Have you lost your joy? Do you feel that it's been a long time since the Lord touched the heartstrings of your innermost being?
The people of Israel felt like that. They were in captivity in Babylon. God's people were refugees by coercion, slaves of cruel masters. They were far away from home with only bad memories for company.
The Babylonians were a rough bunch to deal with, just as they are today. They represent our lost world who have never heard of such a thing as a relationship with a holy God through Christ's redemptive work on their behalf.
The Babylonians in the Israelites' lives were not only rough but cynical. "Go on, sing us one of the songs of Zion," they taunted the Israelites. They weren't a bit. surprised when the Israelites replied bitterly, "How can we sing the songs of the Lord - in a foreign land?" Their harps, once sounding songs of Zion, hung silently on the trees beside the river, where the captives were camped.
Of course the Babylonians knew that people don't feel like singing when they've seen their parents murdered, houses pillaged, and infants' brains bashed out on the cobblestones. Who is going to rise to an occasion like that and sing a song?
But then they heard it. A harp. An old man with fire in his eyes was singing! He was singing one of songs of Zion! It was a beautiful song - a song of comfort and hope. A song about eternity and a God who inhabited it, owned it, and was offering to share it with those who would put their faith in Him.
Who was this old man? He was one of Israel's temple musicians; they, like the other refugees, were far away from home, too. They were sitting by the waters of Babylon along with the rest of the captives. But they were different from the others in an important way.
If we could go back to that time and look carefully, we would see that every tree in sight was festooned with harps except the ones under which these music makers were resting after a hard day's slave labor. There they were, harps in hand, singing songs! They sang a message from the writings of the prophet Isaiah to God's discouraged people.
The songs started with the words: "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God," and ended with" those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint" (Isaiah 40:1,31).
The Babylonians must have thought they'd never heard such a beautiful song in all of their lives. It made them yearn for something - they didn't know quite what - something these holy men among the captives of Israel had that they didn't.
Today the Babylonians are watching those of us who profess to be God lovers. They see our husbands and wives die, our children rebel. They watch us get sick just as they get sick. They observe us as we lose our jobs, are displaced, judged or mistreated. And the way we respond to suffering preaches a more powerful sermon than any religious, silver-tongued rhetoric could.
The Israelites had an incredible opportunity to use the pressure of their circumstances to wait on the Lord. Their lives could have been a living pulpit out of which God could preach and teach and reach His lost world. But look at them and listen to them! Look at their body language, their exhausted faces, the bitter twisted mouths. Their devotion has dried up - they are speechless, songless, loveless, hopeless harpists.
They need comfort and encouragement first. Then they need to be challenged before they can be used to bless and help Babylonians. And the men with the fire in their eyes know it. They say, "Have we got a message for you: Wait on the Lord." That's the answer; that's the secret. There's joy in that, joy to be found, strength to be found - in God's waiting room.
Yes, there is a place within us where He's waiting for us to wait - to wait, hope, look, and cast our burdens on Him. This internal waiting room is a place to exchange our weakness for His power. To let Him play the heartstrings of our life.
Are you in God's waiting room? What are you waiting for? A marriage to be mended, a child to give just a little indication that he or she likes belonging to you? A job, a home of your own, reconciliation? A baby to be conceived or born?
Well, God is waiting - for you to wait. When we learn how to do that, the wind of the Spirit will lift us up above our dreadful days, and we will start to cope - with hope!
How to Sing When You're Under the Grief Tree
So how can we learn to wait on the Lord to renew our joy and strength when we suffer grief and loss? How do we learn songs arising from our pain that we need to sing and that the Babylonians need to hear?
1. Make time and space to wait on the Lord.
The word wait in this passage in Isaiah 40 means to hope - to have overwhelming confidence in something! This "hope" chamber within us is a place where we learn the promises of a faithful God, who keeps His word no matter how far away we are from Him. He Himself inhabits this place. Look around the internal waiting room, and you'll find you've got company! God is here; He's not going anywhere. "I am with you always," He promised, "to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:20). The most incredible and inspiring songs of the faith ever penned have been composed by these bitter waters of sorrow.
Horatio G. Spafford had established an extremely successful legal practice in Chicago. A Presbyterian layman with a keen interest in spiritual things, he enjoyed close relationships with D.L. Moody and other evangelical leaders of the day. A string of disasters he could never have foreseen came his way. Horatio Spafford suddenly found himself by his own bitter waters of Babylon.
First his son died. D.L. Moody and Ira Sankey were planning to campaign in Britain, and Horatio thought it would help his family to get a break if he and his wife and four daughters went with the evangelists. At the last minute he was delayed by business and sent his family on ahead of him on the SS Ville du Havre, intending to follow them as soon as he could get away. On November 22 there was an accident at sea, and the ship sank within 12 minutes. Days later when survivors were brought ashore, Mrs. Spafford cabled her husband: "Saved alone." Horatio left at once to join her. While at sea, near where it was believed his four girls had drowned, a song was born, a song birthed in deep, deep sorrows - the loss of a man's children, first a son and then four beloved daughters. A loss that surely resonated on the Richter scale of Horatio Spafford's heart. Comforted by God at the depth of his grief, he refused to hang up his harp on a weeping willow tree but rather insisted on waiting on the Lord to renew his spiritual strength. These are the words he wrote:
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
"It is well, it is well with my soul."
When it is well with our souls, we will find that our God will never let the sea billows of any storm life throws at us submerge us in despair. Because He, the Man of Sorrows, bore our sin and grief on the cross, there is life and hope even in the midst of the worst tragedy. Only as we wait on God will we find the wings of the Spirit lifting us above our circumstances.
2. Don't waste the pain.
At the moment of writing this I am sitting by my own bitter waters of Babylon. I find myself in a foreign land. Never in a thousand years did I expect to be in such a place as this. But I am asking the Lord that God would accomplish His mysterious and secret purposes in and through my life because of this personal crisis. God has begun to give me a song to sing.
A friend who knew of my hurting heart called to comfort me. In the course of our conversation she said, "Don't waste the pain, Jill." The phrase caught my attention. So, capturing the moment, I sensed He who waited with me gave me help to let the pain drive me deeper into God.
Don't hang up your joy on the grief tree, wait on the Lord and He will give you music in your soul.
