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.
