The Sweetest Song

During the Christmas season one of our favorite events to attend is the Christmas Concert of Mobile's Singing Children.  This choir is made up of children from the second to the twelfth grade and showcases an incredible degree of talent.

The Mobile's Singing Children Choir

The Christmas Concert is traditionally held in the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in our downtown area.  This Cathedral is one of the most beautiful buildings in Mobile, but of more important on this occasion is its wonderful acoustics.

As the older choir begins to sing, usually acapella,  the blending of the voices is so beautiful that tears begin to stream down my face.  I love listening to their harmonies and angelic melodies and I especially love hearing their voices echo off the walls of the large and beautiful cathedral.

This year as the choir began to sing I thought of the day when all we all stand before the throne of God and Christians lift their voices together to praise the Lord Jesus Christ.  What a glorious choir that will be and what harmonies will spill forth from those glorified vessels.  I thought also of how the sounds of that choir will thrill the heart of God who finds the voices of His children sweet in his ears.

Even as this thought was warming my heart and shedding hope to my soul I had another thought.  As sweet as the melodies and harmonies lifted from a myriad of glorified voices  is to our Lord, there is an even sweeter song to Him.  When His children find themselves in painful, perplexing and pitiful situations, the shaky, quiet song of faith they lift up to Him is perhaps the sweetest, most precious sound to His ears.

"By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name."  Hebrews 13:15

When we are in difficult situations, when we find ourselves in pain or need, and we lift up our hearts to our Lord with thanksgiving and praise, we encourage our fellow Christians around us, we give  our own ears fodder for faith and we bless the heart of God.

Let us remember the example set for us by Paul and Silas, who after they had been arrested, beaten, scourged, set in stocks and placed in the inner part of the prison, at midnight "prayed and sang praises unto God."  Our Lord has promised to give us the songs in the night, let us by faith open our lips to offer Him this sacrifice of praise.

"I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: 

I will sing praise to my God while I have my being."

Psalm 104:33