How do you soothe a crying baby or lull a toddler to sleep? You sing, right? When our daughter Rachel began screaming nonstop four hours into a six-hour car trip as an infant, the 30-second theme song from “Elmo’s World” was the only thing that calmed her. That meant we sang it over 200 times until we were home. We sang bedtime duets of “A Whole New World” or “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” as she grew, and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” continues to be a favorite. Much like I am still deeply affected by singing the old hymn “Love Lifted Me” – the song my mom sang while rocking us – my son Asher has already shown an enduring affinity for certain praise songs. He still loves “Oceans”, “Good Good Father”, “Just As I Am-I Come Broken”, and “All to Us”– even though he does not remember the tough nights when my singing those songs in that order was all that would put him to sleep.
And not just lullabies. We sing to our children to celebrate their birthdays, to pass the time on trips, or to teach the alphabet. When singing to our children, we don’t hold back for lack of sheet music: we know the words and the melody by heart. It doesn’t matter that we aren’t trained musicians: our singing isn’t a performance. We sing to our children as an expression of love, without giving any thought to being self-conscious.
That is exactly how we should sing to the Lord. We see that all throughout the Bible. When Moses and the people of Israel sang on the other side of the Red Sea, it wasn’t a performance: it was an expression of love for how God had saved them (cf. Exo. 15:1). Deborah and Barak weren’t self-conscious after God gave them victory over their Canaanite enemies: “Hear, O kings; give ear, O princes; to the LORD I will sing; I will make melody to the LORD, the God of Israel” (Jdg. 5:3). Whether the singer was Israel’s great king David, Judah’s weeping prophet Jeremiah, or Jesus Himself, they were full of love as they sang to God (cf. 2 Sam. 22:50, Jer. 20:13, Matt. 26:30).
The twin testimonies of millennia’s worth of Sacred Scripture and of holding a baby in your arms are both clear: the way God created us, we are meant to sing. It does something special in us. It really means something to the one we sing to. “I will sing and make melody to the LORD”, David once intoned (Ps. 27:6). So, don’t hold back: let’s all sing.
All throughout the Bible, people experience God's presence, power, and joy when they sing together. It's time for us to join the song!