By J.R. Miller
In one of his epistles, Paul gives an interesting suggestion for a beautiful life. He says, "let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." The point to be noted is that the dwelling of the word of Christ in the heart produces a musical outflow, a life of song-- "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs."
The words suggest, in general, good and beautiful lives. Every such life is a song. In another of his epistles Paul says, "We are God's workmanship," and commentators tell us that the word workmanship means poem. "We are God's poem."
Poetry is supposed to be more beautiful than prose. It is characterized by fineness and loftiness of thought, and by charm and beauty of expression. It is not merely something in rhyme, as some writers seem to think. There are rhymes which do not make poetry. A life that is God's poem, should be very beautiful. We may not be able to write poetry, like Tennyson's, which will charm by its music and by its beauty--but we may live poems. We may not be able to write twenty-third psalms--but we can live them. We may make our life a sweet song. We do not need to be poets to do this. A very prosaic man may so live--that gentle music shall breathe from his life all his days. He needs only to be true and just and loving. There are people whose lives are so sweet, so patient, so gentle, so thoughtful, so unselfish, so helpful, and so full of quiet goodness, that they are exquisite poems. They may be plain, simple, without fame, without show, without brilliance--but the marks of God's hands are on them!
We are God's poems. Every beautiful life is a poem. There are people, living in conditions of hardness; whose lives we would say could not possibly have any music in them. Their circumstances are utterly prosaic, with no room for sentiment. Even home tenderness would appear to be impossible in their experiences of toil and pinching poverty. Yet even such lives as these, doomed to heavy work and dreary hardship, or constant pain, ofttimes do become poems in their beauty and winningness. There are many men who never have an hour's leisure or a bit of luxury in all their years, who yet please God continually by their faithfulness, their patience, their contentment, the peace of Christ in their hearts--whose lives are lovely songs. You may not find these poems in homes of luxury and splendor. There is more joy ofttimes in the plain cottages of those who are poor and love God--than in the mansions of the rich who care not for God. Their lives are poems. We find them as we go about these days, sometimes in sick rooms--they are uncomplaining, unmurmuring, singing in suffering; sometimes in experiences of loss and poverty--they are patient and trusting. In many a lowly home you will find poems finer than ever you read in books. The mother of Goethe used to say that when her son had a grief he turned it into a poem. He who knows the secret, may turn all his troubles into poems.
Another meaning of this description--"psalms and hymns and spiritual songs"--is that our lives should be joyous. God wants them to be songs. He wants them to be pure, sweet, gentle, and kind.
We get music into our lives, when we live sweetly in hard circumstances and amid trying experiences. Anybody ought to be able to live songfully in summer days, with flowers strewn all along the path, with only gladness on every hand. But to live rejoicingly in the midst of discouragements, hindrances, and all manner of trouble, is a truer test. The newspapers some time ago, told of a ship coming over from Germany in midwinter with a cargo of many thousand song birds. At the beginning of the voyage the weather was warm and clear. Not a bird sang in those days. Not a note of music was heard. The birds all seemed depressed and unhappy. But about the third day out it began to get colder, and soon the wind was blowing stiffly and there was stormy weather. Then the birds began to sing. Soon all the twenty five or thirty thousand little throats were pouring out song.
People often say that if they had only ease and luxury all the time--costly furniture, sumptuous meals, automobiles--that they would be gladder and would live more sweetly. But if our hearts are right--we should sing all the better, the more joyously--when life is hard, when we have heavy tasks and sharp trials, keen losses and bitter sorrows. An invalid who loved to hear the birds sing at her window said she liked the robin best of all the birds--because the robin sang in the rain.
There are some people who have not learned to sing in the rain. They are easily discouraged. Nehemiah wanted the Jews, who were rebuilding the Temple, to rejoice. They were disheartened, and he wanted them to sing. "The joy of the Lord is your strength," he told them. They would be stronger if they would sing. They would get on better with their building. That is what God wants us to do. He does not want them ever to be gloomy or unhappy. When the word of Christ richly dwells in them--the result will be "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." Paul puts it thus in another of his epistles, when he says, "Rejoice in the Lord always: again I will say, Rejoice." That is, if you are a Christian, you should be a happy one. An unhappy Christian is not doing honor to Christ.
Yet, somehow, many Christians seem not to understand this. Not everyone who bears the name of Christ, sings psalms and hymns and spiritual songs in his daily life. There are Christians who are not always sweet and songful. Some are gloomy, unsympathetic, and cynical. One man said of his neighbor, "I am sure he is a Christian--but he is a disagreeable one." Of another man, in contrast with this one, a neighbor said that other people learned at his feet the kindliness, the gentleness, the sympathy, the considerateness of Christ himself. He lived psalms and hymns wherever he went.
God wants our lives to be songs every day, every night, everywhere. He makes the music bars for us and we are to set the notes on them. The notes are our obediences. God's will is an anthem set for us to sing. There never would be any discords in the music, if we always did God's will, and did it sweetly. Any disobedience, however, any wrong thing we do, any unloving thing, will break the harmony. A perfectly holy life would be a faultless song.
If we would have such musical outflow in our lives--we must keep love in our hearts. Nothing but love makes music. Hate is always discordant. One of the finest things the world has heard in recent days, is the news of the movement for a treaty of international peace. This is a sign of the coming fulfillment of the glorious reign of peace of which the prophets spoke, when wars shall cease, when the nations shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.
There is a picture called 'Peace'. It is of a quiet meadow scene, with a cannon lying amid the grass and flowers. A lamb is feeding there. The warlike gun is now part of the picture of peace. But the gun, even resting, spoils the picture. Here is something better. A tourist tells of visiting a little village in Germany where the church bells that rang on Sundays were made of cannon that had been used in the Prussian War. Instead of belching forth death, the guns now proclaim peace. Dr. Jowett tells of a shop where he saw workmen making bombshells into pots and dishes. That is precisely what the prophet foretold concerning the changing of implements of war into the implements of peace. Every Christian should help to make it true, that nations shall learn war no more. Then would the angel's song, "Peace on earth, good will to men," become part of the glad life of the world.
This life of song--psalms and hymns and spiritual songs--should be the music of every Christian community, of every Christian home. How much broken music there is in many homes! Instruments out of tune make discourdance in the music. Musical people speak of certain harsh sounds in instruments as 'wolf notes'. There are wolf notes in the music of some homes where violent tempers are indulged, where jealousy, hate, lust, the wild utterances of passion, mar the music.
The word of Christ dwelling in the heart would produce a life of song--"psalms and hymns and spiritual songs"--every jarring discord hushed into harmony. That is what Christian peace is. That is what love is.
There is One who can take our lives, with all their jangled chords, their faults and sin, and bring from them the music of love, joy, and peace. There is an old legend of an instrument that long hung silent upon a castle wall. Its strings were broken. It was covered with dust. No one understood it, and no one could put it in order. Many had tried to do this--but had failed. No one could play on it. But one day a stranger came to the castle. He saw the instrument on the wall. Taking it down, he quickly brushed the cobwebs from it, gently reset the broken strings, and then played upon it, making marvelous music.
This is a parable of what Christ does for those who believe on him. Every human life in its natural state is a harp, tarnished by sin, its strings broken. It is capable, however, of giving forth music marvelously rich and beautiful. But first it must be restored, its strings reset; and the only one who can do this is the master of the harp, the Lord Jesus Christ. Only he can bring the jangled chords of our lives into tune, so that when played upon--they shall give forth rich music. If we would have our lives become songs, we must surrender our hearts to Christ--that he may repair and restore them. Then we shall be able to make music, not in our individual lives only--but in whatever relations our lot may be cast, and in whatever circumstances it may fall to us to dwell.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly--and then songs will pour out in all your experiences. One sat before an open fire, where green logs were burning, and listened to the weird music that the fire brought out, and spoke this little parable: "When the logs were green trees in the woods the birds sat on the branches and twittered and sang, and the notes sank away into the wood of the trees and hid there. And now the fire brings out the hidden music." Just so, we may let the words of Christ sink into our hearts as we read them, ponder them, love them. Then, wherever we go, whatever we do, whatever our experiences are, if we suffer, if we have struggle, if we have sorrow, if we have joy, the music will come out in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs!
