waking the dawn

Many mornings, as this morning, I sit with a cup of coffee and a Bible, watching the sun peek over the horizon. Sometimes I pray first, sometimes afterward. Sometimes, to be honest, I’m in a hurry and the prayer waits. On good mornings, the ones when my heart is attentive and my mind is focused, songs run through my head. I don’t actually sing them – I’m a Dutch Iowan, after all, so displays of feeling aren’t seemly, but those songs reflect a surge in my soul.

This morning, sitting at a cheap desk in a hotel room in Tulsa, I can see the eastern sky get light, and the song that’s stuck in my head is “Peace Like a River,” especially the third verse. I’m wondering if that   makes me a little bit like David. He wrote this, words I read this morning in Psalm 108:1-5:
“My heart, O God, is steadfast;
I will sing and make music with all my soul.
Awake, harp and lyre!
I will awaken the dawn.
I will praise you, Lord, among the nations;
I will sing of you among the peoples.
For great is your love, higher than the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;
let your glory be over all the earth.”

David woke up the day with his singing; he too spent the first part of his day tuning his heart to God’s. Out of his faithful heart came music that, he said, he “made with all my soul.” Daily worship, personal but not private. I imagine the King singing at the top of his lungs, a sound that echoed through the palace.

We do it differently, David and I, but for the same reason: we want God to be exalted and his name to be glorified, because his love and faithfulness are bigger than this whole creation. Maybe a little singing is appropriate after all.