The Desert Song

“A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.” Chinese Proverb

I found my mind wandering in church on Sunday. The song was “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us,” and I started out singing it with all my attention given to the sweetness of that everlasting truth, “And wounds which mar the chosen one bring many sons to glory.” Then I became aware of my own wounds as I stood there, singing, and the wounds of those all around me. Two rows away was the family dealing with a mysterious illness, their voices raised in sweet union. All around me were the voices of men who had recently lost their jobs, singing strongly. Then there was the special needs boy who would most likely never leave home. His voice rose above the rest, tinged with the fresh innocence of one who doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. It was my husband’s voice, heavy with emotion, that brought me back to the song. I knew the heavy burden behind the tremor of his tone and the sorrow we were both carrying as he sang those words so full of meaning. 

The weight of that burden silenced me, and it is the reason I have not been able to write as of late. 

It is both an outward and an inward struggle. Outwardly, I am barraged by responsibilities. Inwardly, I am distracted by an impending sorrow. I know so many can relate. We go about our daily tasks because we must, as if on autopilot, but all the while, there is an alarm sounding at the edge of our subconscious: “What can I do?” It repeats itself over and over again as we search for an answer or a cure or a way out. I believed I needed a resolution before I could share how faithful God had been in my hour of need, because I had convinced myself that an acceptable resolution was the only way I could truthfully praise God. But I was reminded by a dear friend that expounding upon the comfort and faithfulness of God when you still don’t have an answer, when “every night I flood my bed with tears” (Ps. 6:6),  when heartache is more routine than rejoicing, that is the time when your words of praise are the most meaningful. 

For it is the songs we sing in the desert that are the sweetest songs of all.

Psalm 63 is a song like that. David is in the wilderness. No one seems to know if he was running from Saul or from his own son, Absalom, at the time, but I’m not sure it really matters. The point is, he is in a desert, and from that place of dryness, he pens these words, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you.” He is running; his enemy is winning.  He doesn’t have an answer for the insurmountable problems he faces. David, the great king and psalter, cannot see a way out of his circumstances, but he knows what he must do in the midst of them: seek God. It is quite a challenge, I think, to seek God instead of seeking an answer or a way out. Waiting for God is waiting “in silence” (Ps. 62:1). As humans, I think we usually prefer the din of a thousand voices to the quietness of a soul intent on waiting on God, but David leans into the silence. He acknowledges the thirst of his heart, and the dryness of his earthly surroundings, and he turns to the only one who can quench that thirst. His turning to God is a whole person experience. With his eyes he looks to God, beholding his power and glory. With his lips, he praises God, promising to bless him his whole life long. He lifts his hands in praise and turns his mind to the helper of his life. In the wakeful moments of the night, when fear and anxiety threaten, in the Lord, his soul finds satisfaction. And in the desert of Judah, David sings for joy with the song he is given by the God who is Lord even of the wilderness. As David abides in his God, God upholds David’s life by his faithful right hand.

And the most beautiful thing is, the Almighty God stretches his wings out over his child, not to protect him from the trials, but to protect him in the trials. 

Difficult circumstances have a way of highlighting the most amazing aspects of God. I was reading about North American birds with the most beautiful songs, and a desert bird, called the Canyon Wren, made the list of the top nine. According to the American Bird Conservancy, it lives “mainly among cliffs and canyons of the arid west” and “is not known to drink water, but its insect diet provides sufficient hydration to keep the bird in excellent singing form!” I find that fascinating. Talk about “a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Ps. 63:1). And yet, the Canyon Wren sings beautifully because it has been designed by God to survive in the desert. God not only meticulously created this tiny creature's physical form, he also gave this bird every note of its beautiful song. And the beauty of its song is only amplified by its desert surroundings as the notes bounce off of the geological formations of desert canyons, echoing from sheer rock face to underground cavern. 

Surrounded by the wantonness of a desert landscape, its notes will reverberate over and over again, filling that arid land with the sweet music of an amazing God.

He is a God who gives us a song. As I am writing this, I am thinking of that scene in heaven, when John weeps because he believes there is no one worthy to open the scroll. In his humanness, he cannot see the whole story, so he weeps for the seemingly hopeless situation at hand. But someone points John’s eyes to “behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah…a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.” And from that Lamb comes a new song, sung by “myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands” because Christ, the Lamb slain, who ransomed a people for God, is worthy to open the scroll. In light of that scene, my problems seem small, and I am reminded just how powerful are the prayers I pray as my soul clings to God in the “watches of the night.” Because Revelation 5 tells us that those prayers are bowls full of incense that forever sit before the throne of God as all the heavenly beings worship our redeemer with the song he has given them. 

A dozen years ago, I found myself distracted by my problems in another worship service, feeling like a hypocrite, struggling to sing another note, when our music leader stopped and said that we do not worship because we feel like worshiping, we worship because God is worthy of worship. I still don’t have an answer to my problem. I cannot find a solution that satisfies. But I serve a God whose “steadfast love is better than life” (Ps.63:3). The song he gives is an eternal song, sung by an eternal choir to the one who is worthy of eternal praise. It is not a song that is determined by my circumstances or my faithfulness or my feelings. It is a song that is determined by the steadfast love and faithfulness of God, “with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).

And in all honesty I can say, I need God more than I need an answer.