Let Me Be Singing When the Evening Comes

Easy to sing, hard to do

I thought I’d be typing this morning’s post, last night, as I sat near a crackling campfire chatting with my hubby, and maybe even sneaking one last s’more.  It would be our last night of a short camping vacation.  I would soak up the way the stars look further from the city, and the embers of the fire in the blackness of that summer night.

Instead, I sat next to piles of bedding that was waiting to be washed in hot water and listened for the whimpering of my Audrey.  What we thought was a tummy ache from the glorious exhaustion of playing with friends outside all weekend, revealed itself as the stomach flu as she ran out of our camper and into the grass to puke late yesterday afternoon.

Relieved temporarily, she fell asleep on the bed in the camper while Mark and I spent a frantic hour working to pack up dirty clothes, put away everything (we were camping with three kids–everything was out), bounce Beckett, and answer  Charlotte’s questions on the topic of tonight’s cancelled campfire.

“Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me, let me be singing when the evening comes.” (Matt Redman, “10,000 Reasons”)

That line has always struck me deeply.  It is so easy to sing and so difficult to do.  In the morning, when a new day fresh with God’s mercies lies ahead of me, it is easy to claim that I’ll be singing His praises when the evening comes.  And then come the changed plans, the stomach flu, the dirty bedding, and I have a choice.

I can choose to let my circumstances dictate by attitude of praise and thanksgiving, or I can choose to let my God dictate them.  The key to following through on singing when the evening comes lies in the second verse of the song, “You’re rich in love and you’re slow to anger.  Your name is great and Your heart is kind.”  Those 10,000 reasons that the heart can find for singing, have nothing to do with circumstances and everything to do with who God is.

If I believe my God is rich in love and His heart is kind, He deserves my singing even yesterday evening with puke stained sheets and a disappointed heart.  Join me this morning?  Tell the Lord that whatever this day brings, you’ll be singing His praises when the evening comes.

 

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