Don't Let the Enemy Shut You Up!

I grew up in a household where singing was just part of everyday life. The household that Dan and I established continued the trend. Sometimes it was rehearsed, purposeful singing as part of choirs, worship teams or ensemble groups. Sometimes, it was silliness, making up lyrics that suited a current situation or mood. Sometimes, it was moments when we couldn’t find the words ourselves, but a song that someone else had written seemed the only answer.

My favorite, though, has always been when it is a song – inspired in the moment or borrowed from some other writer – that bursts out of the overflow of one of our hearts. Those verses that combine human emotion with Holy Spirit-filled expression and leave you speechless once their final note sounds are holy things. They help us to boldly approach the throne of God, express our joy, our pain, our need, then lay it at His feet and give Him the glory in the middle of all of it. They connect us to His strength and power to be renewed and refreshed. They embolden our resolve.

There was a time, however, when those songs that I loved were simply inaccessible to me. Life had taken some difficult turns, trials had come, and I had listened to one of the whispers of the enemy of my soul. At a time when my own sense of inadequacy was at an all-time high, the words of one of my children, who I was seeking to soothe through song and who wanted no part of it, hit home. “Mommy. Stop it! You always sing! I. Hate. Your. Voice.”

Make no mistake: the enemy chooses his weapons carefully.  Had I seen the attack for what it was, had I clothed myself in the spiritual armor available to me, had I remembered the weapons at my disposal, all would have been well. Alas, I did not. The arrow found its mark. And I stopped singing. “Children are honest,” I told myself. “Brutally honest, sometimes, but finally someone said it. My voice, as I have suspected all along, is not really any good. Not even for singing lullabies to my own children.”

In allowing that lie power in my life for a time, I lost a huge source of the Spirit’s encouragement. I silenced the words of other songwriters that lent words to my own experience. Joy and silliness, pain and hope in the midst of it; the language for all of that was out of my reach. The “songs in the night” that the Psalmist writes of, the “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” with which we are to encourage one another…gone. I was no longer part of that conversation.

I will forever be grateful for the message spoken by a worship leader in our area at a conference I attended during that time. She noted, in the middle of her set, that there were many in attendance who were not participating fully. Referencing Hebrews 13:15, she challenged us. “Through Him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name.” Calling attention to the fact that praise isn’t supposed to flow from how we feel about ourselves or our circumstances, but that it is supposed to flow from His power in our lives (“through Him”), and is to be a sacrifice, she pushed us, ESPECIALLY if we “weren’t feeling it” to praise in song anyway. If song was easy for us, then we were challenged to sacrifice in more physical praise through dance or the raising of hands. Her point wasn’t to get us performing, but to get us to realize that many of us were allowing the voice of the enemy or the insecurities of our own flesh to literally cause us to be in disobedience, dishonoring the God who was due our praise and denying His power to give us the words, music, and attitudes fit for His glory.

Convicted in that moment, I surrendered. I surrendered my ideas about the quality of my voice. I surrendered the humiliation of my child’s words. I surrendered the fear that I wasn’t good enough to be accepted by Him or by anyone else who heard me. I surrendered the sting and hurt. I surrendered my voice – the instrument that He carefully crafted as He knit me together – for His glory. And I sang.

Y’all, the freedom that came from that surrender! A river of tears flowed at the healing and joy that coursed through my being as I removed the restraint I had placed on His Spirit’s ability to  move in my life and voice. Singing was returned to my everyday. Inspiration, a language to bridge my experience and His Spirit’s power, a part in the conversation of the saints – all of it returned stronger than before.   He is a God of restoration of all that the enemy seeks to destroy.
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The enemy is a liar. If you have been holding back your praise – or any other part of yourself – from the God who created you because you have believed the lie that your offering is somehow not acceptable to Him, I challenge you as I was challenged. He has asked you to sacrifice your praise to Him. He has offered you His power to do it. The offering that He has required, He has already made acceptable through Jesus. Be set free by your surrender. I promise you; He is waiting with joyful expectation to return what you offer to Him in greater measure than you can imagine.