Devotional | Feeling God’s Pleasure

‘Sing to the Lord, a new song, Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day.’ Psalm 96:1,2 NIV

I grew up in a family that was overly religious and very strict – my grandparents’ home became my home when I was nearly three years old, after my father left us. There were many challenges, but one blessing I had growing up in my grandparents’ home was being surrounded by music. It was my family’s passion. Everybody either played an instrument or sang, or both.

Each Sunday afternoon, after the lunch dishes were washed, we would gather in the loungeroom around the organ and sing while Mum played hymn after hymn. It was an avenue to express worship to this God who, for me, seemed like my father— far away and unreachable, except when I was singing. Strange as it may seem, I longed for those music sessions. I didn’t understand it at the time, but singing transported me to another place – a place of safety and of peace.

Perhaps my grandfather saw this and understood. It would be a while before I did.

When I was ten years old, my grandfather gifted me the violin that had travelled with him as a young lad on a steam ship from England to Australia in the early 1900’s. He had it refurbished and paid for my lessons so I could learn the intricacies of a stringed instrument — and I took to it like a duck to water. Two years later, I played at the Festival of Music in the Adelaide Town Hall, and in secondary school, I toured with the State Schools Symphony Orchestra and finally graduated from university with a double major in music and literature. The difference was that the innocent ten-year-old was now a cocky graduate in her twenties.
As my affair with music began, I opened myself up to everything I could find. I played different instruments, joined bands, and listened to music across all genres, and I craved it like food for my soul. But in time, like a lover who seeks attention for all the wrong reasons, once the crowd went home and the euphoria died down, I wasn’t at peace.
Why? I had everything I needed — or so I thought. I had lots of friends, a job I loved, a husband and family, and a place to use my gifts, yet life felt like a performance — a performance that I felt was never quite good enough.

I decided to have it out with God!

I really should have taken the story of Jacob into account because no one wrestles with God and comes away the same. (Genesis 32:25)

I didn’t come out with a sore hip. I came away with a broken heart.

The penny dropped: I was trying to perform my way to acceptance with God. Such futility. I felt like Paul at the end of Romans seven – ‘what a wretched man I am, who will save me?’

Please understand, I believed. I had prayed the sinner’s prayer, I was going to church, part of the worship team, attending Bible Study, and having my quiet time each morning. I was doing everything for him.

What else did God want?

He wanted me. Not my performance — not my righteous acts, which were like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) and not my singing! He doesn’t need any of it. The opposite is true. He wants us to give up our idols, whatever they may be.
I felt like Abraham, who was challenged to put his precious son on the altar. God was asking me to do the same because music had become an idol — my gift to God, rather than his gift to me.

‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast.’ Ephesians 2:8 NIV

I can do nothing to impress God. He loves me already and requires nothing from me for salvation. (Romans 5:8)
He’s done it all.

At that moment, music became my true act of worship. Decades later, singing often reduces me to tears — because I now understand it’s God’s gift to me – my connection point with him.

In the iconic movie, Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell says, ‘When I run, I feel his pleasure.’ I understand, because when I sing, I too feel his pleasure. It’s why he made me, and it’s why he made you – to worship him. It may not be music, perhaps it’s mathematics, or art, or maybe … maybe it’s writing. Whatever it is, see it as God’s gift to you and feel his pleasure as you use it for his glory.