DEVOTION//Singing in the shadow

Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings (Psalm 63:7).

As a child, I spent many days on my maternal grandparents' farm. One memory that has helped me appreciate psalm verses like Psalm 63:7 was watching small, yellow chicks adventure a dozen inches from their mother. Then, frightened, they would scurry back to her skirts. When hen also sensed danger, she would plop down on her chicks, covering them with her wings. 

A number of psalms use that picture to describe how God protects us, how he is willing to risk his life to keep us safe.

• Psalm 17:8, Hide me in the shadow of your wings.

• Psalm 36:7, How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

• Psalm 57:1, I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.

• Psalm 91:1,2, Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

What comfort to know that the Most High's power provides us with shelter and refuge.

But Psalm 63:7 doesn’t focus our attention on God's wings as a place of shelter and refuge. Look again.

"Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings." 

Instead of lingering on the security that is ours in God's help and protection, this verse leaps ahead to our response to living under God's shelter.  

"I sing in the shadow of your wings," the psalm writes. The Hebrew word translated "sing" has the flavor of "rejoice." These are happy hymns of praise, not blues songs. In other places in the Old Testament, this word is translated cries of joy, joyfully sing, shout for joy, sing for joy, sing aloud, and sing aloud for joy.  

Our Savior, like a mother bird, has called us to safety under his wings (Matthew 23:37). His outstretched, crucified arms guarantee us forgiveness, acceptance, shelter, and eternal life. That’s why we sing. 

No wonder we can "rejoice in the Lord always" (Philippians 4:4) and "give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

We find joy the shadow of the Lord’s wings.