Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Meadowlark Monday in South Dakota

It was a cold March Monday in South Dakota, and meadowlarks were singing every time I went out the door of our travel trailer! 

I used to think that birds sang because they were happy, but I learned that it was more that birds were territorial! Or because they were searching for a mate.
But it doesn't really matter, I guess. I just love to hear them sing.  
 
On Tuesday even more meadowlarks were singing. One was perched on the power pole and another at the tip top of a tree in the draw.
Today as I climbed the grassy hillside for the second time in the morning to get my exercise in, I listened to them all over again. It had snowed last night, and the cold had a bite to it, but the meadowlarks were still singing!

 In these uncertain days I can't help thinking about the beautiful songs of the meadowlarks.
They made me think of Christians who sing. Usually we think of singing Christians as being happy. But sometimes we sing not necessarily because we are happy, but because we are territorial. We know to whom we belong and we sing to let God, ourselves, and others know that we and the world around us belong to Him. Our family belongs to Him. All the area around us belongs to Him and not to other gods or to the devil. 
 
A few weeks ago when we were up in South Dakota we visited one of the mission churches. As we were preparing to leave after the service the pastor's wife turned up the
music that had been turned way low during the service. There is so much trouble in their area with demons and devils that they literally keep Christian music playing in their church as a deterrent! Children who come to their service say, "Why do we not see devils here like we do over there in the trees?" They literally see devils over in the grove next to the church property. But at the church the devil is missing! That's because this building and this property belong to God! And the music that we sing says so! 

Due to troubles, griefs, and disappointments, we may not always be happy, and we may not sing because we are free, for the simple reason that perhaps we are not free. Some of our brothers and sisters are in prison for their faith. And although we are free as Christians, we His servants often go through a lot of suffering. We may not feel like singing, but we still sing. We sing out of obedience and out of trust. We sing because we belong to God and because this world belongs to Him. We sing because we want Him to know that we love Him and that we want to be His and for Him to be ours. Today this last week in March, let's be Meadowlark Christians, singing whether we are happy and free or not!
We can sing because we belong to Christ,  and that is enough to sing about!

1 comment:

  1. So good to see and read your post today (I've been missing them, and praying for you). That's a good message about why Christians sing. I hadn't thought about meadowlarks in a long time. When I was little and we lived in the Dakotas, we liked to hear them and their song. They used to sing around a lake, and I was told they sang, "Watch-out-you'll-get-your-feet-wet," with the "feet" note higher than the rest.

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