Each time God begins a new chapter in my life, the urge to write or preach about it is almost overwhelming. My close friends will tell you, I am an open book. It is how I have both committed to live my life and who I am called to be in the world. And yet, for the last few years, I have felt the hand of God muzzling me. Over and over I have tried to write down the things that He was speaking and doing in my heart, and I have felt His restraint. It’s to the point now where I feel like my entire spirit is glowing with life. I recently saw this image in a meme and it so resonated with me. This is exactly what it feels like to have no outlet for what the Lord keeps pouring into me.
God recently challenged me with this word from the Psalms. He directed to me to Psalm 39, which is a pretty miserable Psalm. At first, I thought I had to have missed God. After all, David is miserable, his eyes are on the wicked and all of their evil and that’s all that’s coming out of his mouth. Until finally, he says this:
“I was mute with silence, I held my peace even from good; And my sorrow was stirred up. My heart was hot within me; While I was musing, the fire burned.”
—Psalm 39:2-3, NKJV
This has truly been me for the past few years. Silent — even from good.
And then comes Chapter 40, which is where the Lord eventually moved me to:
“I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, And established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouth — Praise to our God. Many will see it and fear, and will trust in the Lord.”
—Psalm 40:1-3, NKJV
The Lord had to change David’s song, and He also had to change my song. He had to get my eyes off of the world and the evil and the things that were discouraging my heart and silencing my mouth. Basically off of Facebook, and Twitter, and news.
And then comes the promise and the result of waiting on the Lord and allowing Him to put a new song in my mouth:
“I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart; I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great assembly.”
—Psalm 40:10
I am convinced that it is impossible to declare the Lord’s faithfulness and lovingkindness to the assembly as long as your eyes are on the wickedness in the land rather than the goodness of your God. Like Isaiah did once he had declared all the evil and judgment of the people in Isaiah 1-5, we all need a revelation of God, “high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. (Isaiah 6:1, NIV)” Once Isaiah saw God on His throne, it changed his entire perspective. So what was his response? “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” (Isaiah 6:5)
Only when our eyes are fixed on God can we be trusted to speak His truth to those around us. Before that, like Isaiah, we will be declaring judgment and woe and our own opinions. We won’t influence culture as salt and like, we will parrot it. I know I have certainly been guilty of that. Thankfully, the Lord silenced me on my platform before I could declare my own words among the assembly, rather than the faithfulness of God.
Anyway, that’s my resolve and challenge to you today. What words are you declaring? The faithfulness of God, or the woe in the world? As children of light, let us be like our Father of light — full of truth and full of His goodness, full of His nature of lovingkindness. The world has never needed the hope that we carry more than it does right now. But our words will not be full of hope unless our eyes are full of Jesus.
Only then will our mouths will be loosed because we will no longer speak our doubt, but rather, we will be ambassadors of God’s lovingkindness to all of the assembly. Boldly, graciously, tenaciously, joyously declaring who our God is rather than the sins of our nation or the world. That isn’t our job, friends. It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convict the world of sin (John 16:8). Not ours! Our job is to lead people to Jesus and then let His Spirit worry about the fruit in their lives. We’ve been worrying about and declaring the wrong things.
Thankfully, our repentance is as quick as changing the words in our mouth. We simply turn our eyes again to our Heavenly Father, agree with what He is saying, and let Him be God.
We see this so powerfully illustrated in the story of Zacharias, father of John the Baptist. When he first heard of his wife’s pregnancy, his eyes were on himself and on his wife’s age. His mouth was full of unbelief, so God silenced him. It was only when Zacharias agreed with God’s name for his son that his tongue was set free to speak again.
“He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.” Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God. All the neighbors were filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things.” —Luke 1:64-65, NIV
What were the people of Judea talking about? For once, they weren’t talking about the evil in their land. Instead, they were talking about what God was up to because God had changed Zacharias’s song.
And that’s my prayer for all of us today. Jesus, please change our song and fill our mouths with your goodness so we can be your ambassadors of hope today.
With much love,
Tracy
“May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.” —Psalm 19:4
Comments 2
Great word Tracy.
Wow is all I can say, it’s late I couldn’t sleep and I asked Alexa to play me some piano bedtime music. To my surprise it was sleeping beauty’s song. That lead me to think I wish I could play and write a song for Jesus and the world. Then that lead me to look up piano lessons near me, and that lead me to see your google space. So I click on it and start reading. Let me tell you Tracy, the Lord led me to Psalms 39-40 the other night and had the same impression on me. I never read it In the way I had. It made me cry and want to express that God allows us to feel the pain and grief or loss. Then it lead me to lamentations to conclude that they did in Old Testament a week of mourning and allowed themselves to completely pour themselves out openly to the public and even to hire professional wailers for the family in loss, pain or grief. But the silver lining is it only lasted 7 days and they then rejoiced and gave glory to God for being there with them in the darkness that enveloped them for that period of time. Allowing to clothe themselves once more in righteousness and adorn with their own majesty. But to dance again In the streets that their father in heaven didn’t forsake them and is always there in every circumstance. But allows them to express their pain, I found that to be such a drastic contrast between David and then lamentations end of 7 days. But the exact posture we should always have and I wanted to write a song for that exact imagery. We serve a Father in Heaven who loves us so much and that’s exactly what we must remember that we may have trials but joy comes in the morning. We don’t have to stay where we are at and it’s by renewing our minds that we stay in his constant presence. I just want to shout to the world to never let go of Gods goodness no matter the situation, just like Job as well. I’m so glad I found your site and I have dreamed to play piano all my life. If it’s Gods will maybe I can with you. But I just wanted to share with you how God spoke to me and how much of the same revelation we both share. Thank you,
M.Y