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Learning
To Sing
When the
Psalmist had considered the goodness of the Lord and what
it meant to mankind he cried out, "0 let the nations
be glad and sing for joy" (Ps. 67: 4). And the Lord
through Isaiah said, "My servants shall sing for joy
of heart" (Isa. 65:11). Jeremiah says, "They
shall come and sing in the height of Zion and shall flow
together to the goodness of the Lord .... and their souls
shall be as a watered garden and they shall not sorrow any
more at all." God not only meant this world to be a
happy place, a place of gladness and song, but he has
promised to put a new song in our mouths. Our heavenly
Father like a good earthly father, rejoices in the
happiness of his children. He never intended this world to
be a place of sorrow and care, of disappointment and
wretchedness. He never meant it to be a vale of tears. It
is only because the world has been separated from God that
all these things have come. Sin has brought universal
trouble. God will take away sin and bring universal song.
A child sings because he has the spirit of song in his
heart. His singing may not be very melodious; he may not
keep the tune nor the time; nevertheless the joy in his
heart will bubble over. It is like this when we are saved
from our sins. We are filled with a sense of God's
goodness and our souls begin to sing. Like the child,
however, there are many things we must learn about
singing. Many Christians sing much less with heart and
voice than they might sing if they should learn how to
sing properly. There is a secret about singing that we
learn partly by experience and partly by being taught. One
of the best ways to learn to sing is to practice
frequently. Many Christians do not practice singing. In
other words they do not cultivate the elements in their
souls that would lead to singing. On the contrary they
look on the side of life or at elements in life that tend
to chill the source of song.
Light hearts do not come by accident or at least their
lightness does not depend upon accidental combination of
circumstances. The song in the soul is the result of a
proper attitude of the soul toward life and toward God.
Therefore if we cultivate this attitude toward life it
will be to us a source of song, an inspiration of song. We
sing when we are thinking about pleasant things. This
attitude of mind is conducive to song. The song breaks
forth spontaneously. In order therefore to have our hearts
full of song we must train ourselves to have the heart
attitude from which song springs. We CaD train ourselves
to have this attitude as well as to have the opposite
attitude. Life under such circumstances will be much more
pleasant and happy than if we continually look upon the
dark side of things.
One necessary thing in singing is to get the proper pitch.
If we are pitched too low we may run below the range of
our voice or at least not be heard much. If we are pitched
too high we may be thrown under serious strain to reach
the tone. So it is important that we get the proper pitch
not only for our own sake but for those associated with
us. In other words, we must have a right attitude toward
life and correct views of duty, of our privileges, and of
what a wholesome, sane, balanced life is. We must have a
proper sense of our relationship to the world in which we
live. These things help us to be in harmony.
Harmony is one of the greatest elements of happiness as it
is one of the most necessary elements of song. Speaking of
God's watchman the prophet says, "Together shall they
sing." The Psalmist said, "Behold how good and
how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in
unity." We must get the discords out of our hearts
and out of our voices and out of our relations. One
discordant voice in a choir or in a congregation can spoil
all the singing. I remember listening over the radio on a
number of occasions to the services of a church when a man
standing near enough to the microphone to be readily heard
sang altogether out of tune with the congregation. He sang
away apparently with all his might and his voice stood out
in sharp contrast to the voices of the other singers.
There are people who are out of harmony with their
surroundings, out of harmony with the people with whom
they associate. Their lives and their voices are
discordant. There are some who are discordant only in
certain things. They miss certain notes. It is highly
important that we learn the art of adapting ourselves to
people and to things. We have to get along with people and
they have to get along with us, and if these relations are
to be joyous or even bearable there must be a considerable
degree of harmony. We must get rid of those discords that
continually arise. Sometimes people make no effort to be
harmonious. They go on their way, do as they please, and
think as they please, independently of others. The Bible
teaches us that "no man liveth unto himself and no
man dieth unto himself." There must be an adjustment
of lives to each other and that adjustment must be such as
will produce harmony. We should make a sincere effort to
learn harmony—not merely musical harmony, but soul
harmony.
We must learn to adjust ourselves to our circumstances in
a way that creates the greatest possible harmony. If we
are always at war with our circumstances and our
environment we shall be constantly irritated, disturbed,
and uncomfortable in mind and soul. If we do not find
through adjustment a way to be at peace with our
circumstances and our environment we shall have many a
chafed spot to burn and pain. We must learn to have an
ointment for the chafed spots and we must learn how to
apply it to make it effectual. Patience, submission, and
forbearance in equal parts well mixed make an excellent
ointment. The machinery of life will sometimes get hot
bearings. We need plenty of the oil of grace. This will
stop the friction. There are ways of avoiding friction
with people and friction with circumstances. There are
ways of avoiding discord.
One necessary thing is to keep in time with others.
Soldiers must keep step; otherwise they are a rabble
rather than an army. In like manner we must keep step with
others. I have frequently listened in to church services
where the song leader kept just about half a beat ahead of
his congregation. He was all the time trying to hurry them
up. I thought it a poor means of doing so. It spoiled the
music for me. We may spoil the music of life for some
people in a similar way. At the same time we are spoiling
it for ourselves. So in life's song let us keep in time.
Let us avoid discord, and let us sing with all our hearts.
Religion is harmony. It is harmony with God and harmony
with man. It is harmony with whatever is right everywhere.
Life's harmonies are based on right relations. It is our
privilege to have right relations with God, relations that
satisfy us and relations that satisfy God. This is not an
extreme statement. Thousands of people have this
experience daily. They know the peace and joy and
satisfaction that come from such relations. There can be
no true happiness when one has not proper relations with
others. If those relations are full of discord,
disagreement, and inharmonies, life must be lived on a
plane far below its possibilities.
There is need of harmony within ourselves. Many people are
torn with conflicting emotions, with conflicting desires,
and conflicting purposes. They have conflicting
experiences. There is conflict in the soul, conflict in
the mind, and this often results in inharmony in the body.
We should carefully study ourselves to see where our
discords are located. We should then set about removing
these discords, getting ourselves into tune. We should
create harmonious relations within ourselves, instead of
allowing the inharmonies that exist to persist.
To a very large extent we can have harmonious relations
with others. There are some people who are not harmonious
with whom we must have relations. The' are not willing to
be in harmony with us or with other.. We should strive
earnestly that on our part there shall be no inharmony. We
should have no attitude of inharmony toward them, no
feelings of inharmony, no disregard of their rights. On
our part there can be the elements of harmony without
respect to what is on their part.
It is God's earnest desire and purpose to be in her"
mony with all his creatures. He will do everything in his
power to bring us into harmony with himself. There is
always a way for us to come into harmony with him and that
is not a difficult way if we just take the right way. This
right way we can learn from God more readily than from any
other source.
Harmony produces a life worth living. In fact, the
happiness of heaven results from its harmony. This is true
of the home, of the church, of the neighborhood, of the
nation. The Psalmist said, "As for me I am for
peace." Peace is harmony. Jesus said, "Blessed
are the peacemakers." If we have in our hearts the
attitude of peacemaker, if we strive earnestly for
concord, we shall inevitably be happy. There will be
things in life we cannot help, things that are unpleasant,
some things that are hurtful, some things that must be
endured, but these need not destroy the harmonies in our
souls nor the harmonies of our joyous song nor the
harmonies of our relation with everything else, except
these particular things that cause trouble. We can shut
these rings up into a limited area of our nature and not
permit them to permeate all our being. We can restrict
them to the space that circumstances actually demand and
keep the rest of our life free.
One important thing to observe is that we do not flat the
tones. There is a natural disposition in many singers to
fall below the pitch in singing. Thus they get out of
harmony with those who keep the pitch. Or if it is a
leader who gets out of pitch all the singers will soon be
out of pitch. There is a tendency to fall Wow the
standards we have set for ourselves. There is always the
tendency to deteriorate in our spiritual lives. In other
words there is a tendency to flat the tones. It is needful
therefore that we frequently compare the pitch of our
lives with the pitch pipe or the tuning fork that gives
the correct pitch.
God has a most excellent and most satisfactory tuning
fork. It is the Bible. It will always give us the true
pitch for life, the true tone for our songs. Again and
again we should come to God in prayer and thus find if we
are in tune with him, and if we are not, there be restored
to his pitch.
We shall never be like God in greatness and majesty end
power. We shall ever be finite and have our faults and
failings. Nevertheless we can keep our lives in tune with
the infinite. We can have the tones of divine love, truth,
and mercy abounding in our lives and thus the rich and
splendid harmonies of heavenly music will be sounding in
our hearts and in our lives and their tones will inspire
those about us to high and holy things that will start the
heavenly melodies ringing in them also.
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