April 5

Psalm 95
What causes you to sing? Do you ever just break forth into singing? What motivates it? I have several motivations when I break into singing. Occasionally, I just enjoy it. Sometimes I am kind of melancholy, and it just seems fitting to sing a sad song. Sometimes I am depressed, and I need to combat depression with joyful expression. But usually it comes as an outburst of something I am joyful about. I have written a few songs, not many but a few. They all came to me when I was thinking about the Lord when He had just brought Laura into my life. It set me in a joyful mood because of His wonderful grace. The songs just came.
The Psalmist, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, commands us to sing joyfully to the Lord. It is not enough for him to give us a command, but He also tells us how great He is. He is in the deep places of the earth. I have visited a few caverns. I have been to Marvel Cavern, Lurray Caverns, Alabaster Caverns and some caverns in Chiapas, Mexico. I am always amazed at the beauty under the earth that God has created. Who knows what beauties lie under the earth that only God knows what is there. He alone appreciates their great beauty. He created if for His own pleasure. Yet man from the very beginning has been digging in the earth trying to mine its treasures and explore its beauties.
I am equally amazed at the beauty of the sea. I saw the ocean for the first time when I was 19 years old. For almost three years I lived only three blocks from the beach. Another ten years I lived just a fifteen minute drive from the beach. The sea is incredibly vast in its majesty and beauty. It has been said that we know more about outer space than we know about our oceans. I don’t know if that statement is true, but I do know the ocean is an incredible ecosystem which also is full of the beauty of the Lord. Its storms are terrible indeed. Its life is teeming with complexity and diversity. Its color is breath taking. I remember one night walking on the beach. We had some kind of anomaly in the ocean that caused thousands maybe millions of little jellyfish to wash up on the beach. As Laura and I walked along, the breakers would dash the little jellyfish against the sand. When their tentacles hit, they would light up light like mini-lightning bolts. The beach literally sparkled with the jellyfish raging against the breakers and sand. It was a sight of outrageous beauty. He created it for His own pleasure. Even if we had not been there, it would have happened, and He would have enjoyed it! What was it like for those firs explorers to build boats and rafts and set out for other continents across the vast sea?
I have also lived near mountains. Their beauties to me are the most staggering of all. To stand on the edge of an outcropping of rock near the pinnacle of a mountain causes a swelling of awe to rise up in me that takes my breath away. Because of the panoramic scene which spreads out before me, it causes me to see how little I am in a vast array of beauty. Yet I am only able to enjoy its beauty because others have built roads and cut pathways for me to get to the top safely and then return home. Yet God created and sees this beauty and more that we cannot ever see. He does it all for His pleasure.
This God, who does this, takes even greater delight in His creation of us. He sees possible beauty in us that no one else can see, and He rejoices! With all this possibility, He chooses take us into His flock, and he cares for us as a shepherd for his sheep. He yearns to draw that beauty out of us, but it means that we must listen to His voice. It is going to take a lot of work. Work makes me tired, but if we listen to his voice, He leads us into a work that is restful. That is His desire. He leads us into a work of beauty that is restful. Why wouldn’t that knowledge cause a song of joy to well up in me? I have to let it out! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor John