Being delighted in
Scott Harman
January 26, 2024
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Listen to this daily worship
Zephaniah 3:17 (NIVUK)
17
The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.’
My daughter and I love to listen to music together. She’s an excellent pianist and singer. I took up guitar during the pandemic. Most of the time when we play together, I can’t keep up. Sometimes, there is a song that is simple enough for me to play along. We love all kinds of music. I love sharing with her the music I grew up with from the 80s and 90s. She likes a lot of it. Occasionally I find myself singing along to one of the old classics until I get to a certain lyric, and I stop, and go, “Ohhhhh, I don’t think I realised what this song was really about! Maybe this is not one I want to sing with my child! Why did anyone like this song in the 80s? Do they know what this is about?”
Zephaniah is kind of like that one hit wonder song that you haven’t really thought about what it actually means. It’s probably in the category of books you forgot were in the Bible. It’s only 3 short chapters, and most of it talks about how angry God is with Israel and their worship of idols. It says that God is planning to do something about this. In fact, it starts by saying that God, “will wipe out everything from the face of the Earth.”
I don’t really like this song, and I’m not sure I want my child to hear it.
But, it can be helpful to listen to the whole song.
In the end it says, “The Lord Your God is with you, the mighty warrior who saves, He will take great delight in you, in his delight he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
Whatever else is going to happen. Whatever else God is going to do. Whatever else might go wrong in the world.
In the end God rejoices over his children with singing.
Prayer:
God in these uncertain times we hear the song of destruction and doom all around us. We confess our worship of idols of power, money, war, control. And we understand our need for a saviour; a mighty warrior who saves. Only by your salvation can we be saved from rebuke. We are blown away by the song you sing over us.
Today, may we be bathed in the hope of your singing over us. We’ll surely see in our world all that may bring destruction on ourselves. And it may feel like we don’t want to experience this song to the end. But we strain to hear your voice in the end!
Lord may we hear your voice in our hearts singing your rejoices over us and our neighbours as we courageously go about our day.
Amen
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