Even though I haven’t been blessed with a good voice or the ability to read music, I love to sing. Singing in the choir at every church we’ve been in has been important. People have told me that I sing with a smile on my face and that it touches their heart.
I teach second grade at a Christian school. My class this year loves to sing also. They will sing on the playground while swinging or while waiting in line. They’re disappointed during Bible class every morning when I say it’s time for the lesson.
When I think about Delanco Camp I think about all of the songs we sing. It’s such a huge part of the whole experience. We love having the bands come (like Tenth Avenue North!) singing our favorites “Shout to the Lord,” “Days of Elijah,” “Mighty to Save,” etc. Some of my fondest memories are of my own summer camp experiences at Byron Bible Camp in Huron, S.D., where we sang choruses like “Give Me Oil,” “Isn’t He Wonderful?” We would sing on the bus traveling to and from the lake to go swimming, sing on the hayrides, and sing some more around the campfire. The songs have changed but the reason we sing hasn’t. Why should we sing a new song; don’t the old ones apply?
Sometimes we can get stuck in a rut. We get stagnant in our daily walk with God. We accept Jesus as our Savior and ask Him to forgive our sins. Then we sit back on our haunches and do nothing to keep that song of praise fresh, up to date. If we’re asked to give a testimony of what God is doing in our life right now we hesitate because we’re stuck back to when we gave our heart to Jesus when we were 10, 12,15 years old. We have to keep our experience up to date, alive by praying constantly, singing those new songs of praise, reading His Word daily and letting him speak to us and then obeying Him.
No one likes stale bread. My family loves when I make homemade bread or rolls and it comes out of the oven fresh and hot. You spread it with butter and yummmmm! There’s nothing else that compares. Our experience needs to be fresh like that bread. Every time I walk on the grounds at Delanco Camp I feel the praises, the new songs bubbling up in my soul. I want my testimony to reflect Jesus’ love and blessings in my life. I want to shout it from the mountaintop “Praise God” from my favorite song “Pass It On.” If you are in a ‘ rut’ why don’t you join me and sing a new song of praise to God because He has done mighty things. Wanda Brunshetter writes in her book The Simple Life, “When you sing your own praises you always get the tune too high; when you sing God’s praises you can never go high enough.” Shout His Praises to everyone you meet during these days of Lent as you draw closer to Him.
