Chain Music

 'Speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord." Ephesians 5:19

In an old interview with Richard Wurmbrand, author of the classic, "Tortured For Christ," Wurmbrand tells of the many times he and his fellow Christians, held in chains in prison, would sit together in their cell and sing songs of praise and worship to their Lord. He said, "And our jailers provided us with musical instruments with which to accompany our songs. As we sang, we would provide a melody by hitting our wrist shackles upon each other or the floor." They used the very symbol of their captivity as a means of worshiping the Father. Their chains were used to make music to God. Chain music.

I often wonder what the melody of our lives sounds like to Him? What does it sound like to those around us, to brothers and sisters in Christ? Few are so gifted as to have a beautiful voice, but all of us can offer up beautiful soul music to Him, and we can do so in all places. Even the darkest ones. Yet we rarely do. All of us have had the experience of listening to someone sing who had no ability to do so. It was a trial upon both our ears and spirit. How many would say the same about the broken melodies that come from our hearts and spirits?

I'm heavily convicted by Wurmbrand's story. I have read many others like it. Stories from Chinese believers, imprisoned and tortured by their communist overlords. I have heard them from Christian missionaries, kidnapped and abused by Muslim radicals. I have heard these stories from so many different sources, yet does my story come close to resembling theirs? Does yours? Life in this fallen world has a seeming endless means of placing chains upon our wrists, legs, and spirits. Have we ever lifted them up, in whatever form they come, and offer them in worship to Him? Have we ever played chain music to Him?

All who have heard the story in the Book of Acts of Paul and Silas' unjust imprisonment. Placed in the darkest and deepest part of the prison, beaten and bloody, they sang songs of praise to the Lord. So moved were their fellow prisoners, that though an earthquake brought the walls of the prison down, all, including Paul and Silas remained in their cells. Praise, worship, does such to the walls that press in on us, to the chains that seek to hold us, when we offer them in worship to Him. The Bible relates that the jailer and his family all came to Christ as a result of all this. I believe that their fellow prisoners did as well. Such is the power of our witness when our lives sing with power of our chain music.

No one feels like singing and praising in their pain and hardship. To do so requires and act of our will. But if we will, we find that He, through His Holy Spirit, provides the music and the song, and He will do so through the very chains and circumstances of our pain. It is recorded that so many of the Christian martyrs of the first century, killed in the arena in Rome, died while singing songs of worship to their God. May the songs that coursed through their hearts course through ours. May we cease with our "songs" of complaint, self-pity, and self absorption, and release a melody unto Him, each other, and a watching world, that contains indescribable beauty. We'll all sing some kind of song today. What will be yours?

Blessings,

Pastor O