Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord all the earth. Psalm 96:1
We’re told to sing without considerations to our feelings or ability. Furthermore, we’re told to sing a new song—something fresh, not old, tired, or dated.
This is quite a challenge. There’s a tendency for us to prefer songs that were meaningful to us at certain times in our Christian lives. We might gravitate towards those songs that were special to us when we first became a Christian, or songs from particular events that were important in our Christian growth like camps or conferences. When God tells us to sing a new song, he is encouraging us to move forward in our Christian walk. He still has adventures, opportunities, and tasks for us to complete. Perhaps we’ll volunteer for an outreach event, a mission trip or a new ministry.
God always has new discoveries for us, new facets of his love, new encounters with his grace. So while it’s reassuring to sing songs that remind us of our past experiences with God, he continually leads us into situations where we learn new songs, which will help us connect with him in a deeper way.
We may resist God’s nudges because we’ve become comfortable with our present level of relationship with God. We may have recently been through a faith stretching event and want to settle down to enjoy a measure of ease. However, we might find God stirring up a sense of restlessness because it’s time to move on to new challenges.
While it’s enjoyable to reminisce, we don’t engage with what God is doing in the present, if we’re singing songs that tie us to our past.
So let’s sing a new song to the Lord.
