Day 5: Songs in the night
I remembered my songs in the night... (Psalm 77:6).
In the book of Hebrews there is a wonderful verse which says that Jesus Himself was made “perfect through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10). Let not life’s pains and trials dismay you. Submit to God, accept the providences that come as part of His discipline, and take the lessons, the enrichings which He sends. Someday you will know that many of your sweetest songs were learned in the darkness.
In the advertising brochure that came with a new canary bird, there is a description of the way the birds are educated. They are raised in the peasant districts of Germany. When they are to be trained, each bird is put in a little box cage, with only a small hole to give it just light enough to see to eat and drink.
These cages are then put in a room from which all light is excluded, and their teacher gives the birds a lesson every two hours. First they get a lesson on the flute, then on the violin, then on bells, and last of all a nightingale is brought in to sing its wonderful notes and then to teach the birds to sing at night.
The point to be noted is that the birds must be taught their lessons in the darkness. They would not learn them in the light. It is with many people also as with these birds. There are certain songs we cannot learn to sing in the sunshine.
So the great Teacher calls us apart and shuts the door, to keep out the light and exclude the world’s noises, and then teaches us the songs of peace, of joy, of trust, of love. Thus, painful things of life have their place in the divine training of our lives.
~ James R. Miller ~ Afterward You Will Understand, pub. 1909
Guide me when the shadows o’er me
To my vision dark appear;
Let me see my way before me,
As at noonday bright and clear.
~ Clara M. Brooks ~ pub. 1907
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