Stop Singing The Blues

Today’s Bible readings are 2 Samuel 22:1-23:23, Acts 2:1-47, Psalms 122:1-9, & Proverbs 16:19-20

2 Samuel 22:1-4

David sang this song to the Lord on the day the Lord rescued him from all his enemies and from Saul. ² He sang:

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; ³my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety. He is my refuge, my savior, the one who saves me from violence. ⁴ I called on the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and he saved me from my enemies.

Today’s readings are all so great. I had such a hard time picking what I would blog about. I chose this portion of scripture because of the way that it has spoken to me. After this great victory David did the only reasonable thing—sing a song of praise to the One who gave him the victory!

Throughout the remainder of this song, we see David declaring all the wonderful things that God has done for him. We also see David mentioning all the great things about God’s character & nature. Through the course of this song of praise we learn so much about the nature & character of God.

1.      We see how mighty He is to save—v. 3-7

2.      We see how awesome His power is—v. 8-10

3.      We see the wonder of His presence—v. 12-15

4.      We see the greatness of His authority—v. 16-20

5.      We see His goodness displayed through His rewards—v. 21-25

6.      We see His faithfulness—v. 26-30

7.      We see His holiness & perfectness—v. 31-37

8.      We see His power at work in us—v. 38-46

9.      We see how worthy He is of praise—v. 47-51

David was a man who had enough sense to praise. I want to point out that it wasn’t a simple—“Oh thank you Jesus”. It was long, heartfelt, genuine expression of gratitude & thanksgiving. It flowed from him as though it was natural. It showed that he knew who his God was. It also showed that he knew all that his God had done over the years. He knew the exploits that God had done for others in the past. He praised for His victory & even the victories of others!

I think that there is a lot that we can learn from this.

1.      We should be more familiar with the good things of God than we are with our circumstances.

Form what some people say, it sounds like all they think about is the stuff they are going through. It is all they talk about. The only thing that I hear from the mouths of many are:

1.      Life is so hard.

2.      I have it so bad.

3.      Things never go right for me.

4.      My situation is still the same.

5.      Nothing good ever happens in my life.

6.      My spouse is so awful.

7.      My situation is so much worse than anybody else’s.

They rehearse this over & over. They have made this their song. They sing it to all who will listen. Then, they wonder why they are so down & depressed. They wonder why things never go good for them. I think that even if things did go good for them that they would miss it because the only song they know how to sing is the blues. Bless God, STOP SINGING THE BLUES!!! START SING PRAISE!!!

2.      We should know what God has done is the past, as well as, what He plans to do in the future.

You know, there is only so much that can fill your mind. If you fill it with the right things then the wrong things have no room to dwell. This is why it is of such great benefit to fill our minds with God’s past victories. He has done great things. There are too many to name.

As we rehearse God’s past victories it also testifies of what He plans to do in the future because GOD NEVER CHANGES! This could be the best thing that we do for our personal lives of faith. As we fill our minds with God’s past victories it convinces & convicts us of His future ones. This will drive out any potential doubt.

Get your day of on the right start. Make the move in the arena of your mind. Sing your song to the Lord right now. If you don’t have one, then sing what David sung. This is proper for the saints of God. We are to rejoice with those that rejoice. Drive out the self-defeating thoughts that hinder your progress by replacing them with the memories of God’s impeccable track record. Sing a song of victory instead of a song of defeat!

Pastor Richard Schlotter