One of the things I often think about is what it sounds like when God sings. The Bible says He rejoices over us with singing. Does it sound like hymns? Or contemporary? Maybe it’s Jewish! Some say Country….surely not. The word that is used only appears about 3 times in the Bible. Once when the children of Israel came through the Red Sea. Another when David brought back the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. The other is the one aforementioned in Zephaniah 3. In some translations it is given the English word “exult”. There is something really exciting to me in the meaning of the word. It is best described by what you may have witnessed when Tiger Woods sank that putt at the Masters… or when LeBron James flushes a basketball and comes down with a victorious scream.
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I’ve watched curiously as men and boys express the moment of exultant praise, but didn’t even know it. The moment of pure exhilaration is the sound God makes over us. Pure joy! From way down deep. It is the sound returned to God in praise. I’ve watched as thousands of men expressed it together in stadiums around the country. As boys and men we all have those moments of breakthrough and victory. Moments of sheer ecstasy. The world offers us lots of moments like that. But they are all counterfeits. The real moment of fist-pumping,chest-bumping, yell comes not when we win but when we return to God the sound He exults over us. That can only happen when we come to the understanding that God loves us so much He sings and shouts over the redeemed. Most men struggle when they think of that kind of love. They have a hard time feeling worthy. I’ve watched them applaud and shout. But, I’ve seen them struggle with expressing their deepest emotion “to” the Father.
Breakthrough!
I am praying for a time when men will express the same kind of exultant joy toward the author of the victory scream as they do over temporary highs.