Singing in the Night

When I am upset, sad, or grieving, the last thing I want to do is sing.

Sometimes, if my kids are having a tantrum, I’ll try to distract them by singing a fun song, not to ignore their pain, but just to help them regulate a bit so we can resolve their issue without the added threat that they will hurt themselves by throwing their bodies on the floor with blind toddler fury.

Some of the time, the singing will only work for a second, but occasionally it will work incredibly well. A simple line from “Let it Go” will cause joy to burst forth from the heart of my three-year-old daughter in such a way that resolves whatever pain she was feeling the moment before.

Recently, I’ve been moved by the choice of the Bride in the story of Song of Songs to sing in the middle of one of the most difficult moments in her life.

For the second time in her story, she wakes up to find that her Beloved has gone in the middle of the night. She says:

We all experience seasons in our journey of growing in love for God where it seems that His nearness has suddenly vanished.

While we used to hear His voice clearly, it’s not as clear as it once was.

When we used to feel His presence regularly, it feels like a distant memory.

It seems that everyone else in our life can be close to God except us.

For many of us, in the absence of a feeling of closeness to God, we can self-medicate and look for fulfillment in a thousand areas other than God. We can bury ourselves in our work, increase our Netflix intake, or drop our spiritual disciplines due to the hardness of the season. Over time, many of us can even change our theology to match our lack of experience of the presence of God.

I love the Bride because the pain of her feeling of distance from her Beloved causes her to seek him more.

Instead of disconnecting, she reaches.

Instead of assuming that he doens’t love her anymore, she asks, seeks, and knocks.

She goes throughout the town, and even experiences ridicule from those around her for seeking her Beloved.

Much like Job’s friends who mock Job for seeking God in the middle of his hard season, the sentinels in the city beat and wound the Bride (5:7).

For many of us, when we choose to seek God in the middle of heartache pain and loss, or a feeling of supposed disconnection from God, we can experience this mocking voice internally — “It’s not worth it to seek God!” “There are more important things you can do with your time!” “Just enjoy life a little bit!”

Or, we can experience this voice externally — well-meaning voices in our life can misunderstand the season we’re in, offering pleasant platitudes to explain away the hardness of a season we’re in — “God will not give you more than you can handle.” “Don't be legalistic — just relax!” “God is good even if we don’t feel it!”

All of these voices can conspire together to get us to try to change our theology to match our experience or worse — to dull the hunger in our hearts for God.

Instead of declaring like the Bride, “I am lovesick!” (5:8), we settle for less passion, zeal, and love for God and trade it in for cynicism, disillusionment, and boredom.

Instead of letting pain produce the fruit lovesickness in us, we let us produce a thousand lesser fruits.

This sequence in Song of Songs culminates when the people around the Bride ask her:

In other words, they ask her: “Why would you look for him? What’s so special about your Beloved that you would spend time trying to find him? Isn’t there better things you could do with your time?”

I am so moved by the Bride’s response.

Instead of giving in to the tempting voices, instead of toning down her pursuit, instead of ignoring her hunger, instead of changing her theology to accommodate the pain and hardness of the season she is experiencing, she sings:

The hardness of the Bride’s season doesn’t produce cynism, boredom, or disillusionment in her. Instead, it produces a love song — one of fascination with the beauty of her Bridegroom! (It is interesting to note that as she praises the physical features of her Beloved, she follows the same sequence that John follows when he describes the Resurrected Jesus in Revelation 1:14-16 — head, eyes, face, body, voice. He is altogether beautiful!)

Most of the Song up to this point has focused on the Beloved’s adoration of the Bride — he has sung of her beauty. He has sung of his pursuit of her. She has responded with some short phrases of love here and there, and she has sung about how his love makes her feel, but by and large up to this point the Song has focused on the Beloved’s adoration of the Bride.

It is breathtakingly beautiful to me that the first full declaration of the Bride’s love for her Beloved comes in the middle of the most painful moment thus far in her story. This is the first uninterrupted song of praise and adoration that is completely devoid of any reference of how he makes her feel, instead it is entirely focused on Him.

For many of us, it’s the opposite. It’s easy to love God when it’s going well, when we can feel Him close to us, and when we’re experiencing the overflow of His presence. And this often shows up in our worship — we love to sing songs about how He makes us feel.

I love singing songs about how God makes us feel, but the question of maturity is this: will we love Him when it’s hard?

Will we choose to love God in every season — regardless of how we feel?

Will we sing to Him even when we can’t feel Him?

Will we let the pressure of life produce the fruit of lovesick longing for God, or will we let it produce cynicism, boredom, and disillusionment in us?

Friends, can I encourage us to sing again today?

St. Augustine famously (maybe) said, “To sing is to pray twice.”

From Adam’s song to Eve in the Garden of Eden, to David seeking God as a solitary Shepherd boy in the wilderness, to the angels and elders around the throne — the Biblical story is filled with lovesick singing.

Nobody writes a manual or a textbook for those they love — they write poems and songs.

And, practically, it’s really hard to sing when we’re not doing well. Singing with love tenderizes the heart like nothing else.

If you are struggling with bitterness, boredom, cynicism, disillusionment, and disconnection in your love for God today, can I encourage you to simply sing?

I’d love to invite us to pray today:

• Begin by taking some deep breaths in and out. Perhaps as you breathe in pray “Come,” and as you breathe out pray “Holy Spirit.”

• Once you feel settled, I’d love to invite you simply to sing to God. If it helps, you can steal the words from the Bride in Song of Songs 5: “This is my Beloved and this is my Friend.”

I love hearing from those of you who are coming alive and living more in love with Jesus. Always feel free to hit “reply” and let me know if there is any way that I can support you in prayer.