In this program, Joni encourages you to hum a hymn because there are people around you who may need a refreshing word – or song.
SHAUNA: This is Shauna on Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope. Aren’t you glad that Jesus paid it all? Listen in as Joni sings about the price Jesus paid for us.
(Joni sings:)
I hear the Savior say
“Thy strength indeed in small”
Child of weakness, watch and pray
Find in me thine all in all.
Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.
JONI: That is one of my favorite hymns to sing whenever I wheel up and down the long ramp that winds around our chapel here at the Joni and Friends International Disability Center. Every morning and every evening when I wheel up the ramp to my office, or when I wheel down the ramp to leave in the late afternoon, I always love to sing a hymn. It just sounds so nice echoing off the walls and the ceiling of our large lobby, and because so many of my co-workers work in alcoves on the second floor near the ramp, it’s so nice to hear a couple of them kind of chime in with their harmony.
But the other evening when I was singing this beautiful hymn going down the ramp, all of a sudden, I heard more than just one or two voices, I heard a whole chorus of voices. Nearing the chapel, I looked up and there, lining the glass railing on the second floor, were about six or seven co-workers, all standing up singing along with me. And it was absolutely beautiful – it was kind of a flash mob – you know what I mean? I never expected such a thing! And what was really cool is a couple of other co-workers getting out of the elevator on the lobby level to go home. When they came out of the elevator, they, too, paused and sang the hymn along with us.
Psalm 134 tells us to lift up our hands and worship the Lord in the sanctuary. And I will add it sure is fun when you live in a Christian workplace where you can, without fear, raise your voice in a spontaneous song of praise. It’s what happens here at the Joni and Friends International Disability Center, and it may account for why our co-workers always vote this ministry as a best Christian workplace every year.
Now, I don’t know where you work [and it may well not be in a Christian organization] you could be working in your home, you could be walking down the hallways of a college dorm; you could be standing at your kitchen sink or waiting in line at the grocery store. May I encourage you to [if you dare, if you are brave enough] hum a hymn, or even sing it softly, because there are people around you [some of them perhaps Christians] who need a refreshing word; even those who do not follow Jesus, they need encouragement. And it really can be theirs for a song, your song, and no better hymn is there to sing than the wonderful assurance that Jesus really has paid it all!
So, when I’m finished here, and later on in [I don’t know] a couple of hours when I wheel down the ramp, think I’ll make this hymn the hymn I’ll sing: Jesus Paid it All. Hey, visit joniradio.org and tweet today’s program, spread the encouragement! God has granted us so great a salvation, and friend it truly is something you want to sing about! So, join us in the song at joniradio.org.
© Joni and Friends