PRAISING THE LORD

God put a new song in my mouth.

I was a baby Christian, basking in newborn fellowship of the Holy Spirit.  I woke up one morning only to discover I was singing a new song.  I had never sung this song before, but it was clear I had been singing it while asleep and continued singing it now awake.  How do you sing a song you never knew before?  How do you come to know the words?  That is kingdom dynamics. 

The anointing

One of the friends of Job says God gives us songs in the night.  But this was not about a bible character, this was about me.  I decided to consult a Pentecostal hymnbook.  I checked the index and found the song there: “When the Spirit of the Lord is Upon My Soul.”  I opened the book to the page of the song and discovered that I had been singing the song word-for-word.  The song says: “When the Spirit of the Lord is upon my soul, I will dance like David danced.”  The refrain is quite straightforward.  It simply says: “I will d-a-n-c-e; I will d-a-n-c-e.”

I was perplexed.  So God can teach a man a song he does not know word-for-word, and he just sings it supernaturally?  I spent the entire morning singing the song, dancing all over the house.  From the shower, to my dressing-room, to my breakfast: I sang and hummed and danced.  I was a complete nuisance. 

My wife and son stared at me and looked at one another knowingly.  It was a Sunday morning, so we were going to church.  At the time, our preferred church was some thirty minutes from our house.  So I continued singing in the car at the top of my voice.  I left no one in doubt that the Spirit of the Lord was indeed upon my soul.

Confirmation

When we got to the church, something strange happened.  My young son was the first to get out of the car and go into the church.  What he saw was so amazing to him that he immediately rushed out to tell us.  “Daddy, Daddy,” he shouted, his eyes getting bigger, and a smile of incredulity on his lips.  “They are singing the same song.”

We walked into the church to find it in something of a Holy Ghost uproar.  People were jumping up and down.  Some were clapping their hands with great fervour.  Others had turned the church into a big discotheque and were dancing aggressively.  Everyone was singing the same song that the Lord had just taught me: “When the Spirit of the Lord is upon my soul, I will dance like David danced.”  Then they came up with other variations such as: “When the Spirit of the Lord is upon my soul, I will clap like David clapped.” 

Joy of the Lord

This became my first telling demonstration of the joy of the Lord.  It is a joy immune to situations and circumstances.  It cannot be dampened by affliction.  It remains in spite of persecution and bereavement.  That Sunday morning, everyone in Pentecostal Assembly was gripped by the joy of the Lord.  But I was privileged to have had a foretaste of it in my sleep and since I woke up. 

Nobody praised God like David.  He says of the Lord: “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.  He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.”  That glorious Sunday morning, God put a new song in my mouth.

A friend of mine told me about his own experience.  He lived next door to a Pentecostal church, and found the church services to be a big nuisance.  The services were so loud; they seemed to be conducted in his living room.  The worst part, he said, was the praise-worship.  The church-members next door sang all kinds of songs he could not stand, but he had no choice but to listen to them again and again whenever a service was going on.  He complained to them, but to no avail. 

One morning, as he was preparing to shave, he caught himself singing one of their songs.  He had sung a few lines before he realised what he was doing and quickly stopped himself.  He looked at himself long and hard in the mirror and burst out laughing.  Who would have thought that he would end up singing one of those “hateful” Christian songs?