Several years ago, I read the following story in an issue of Offering Christ Today:
A local newspaper ran a story about a woman and her parakeet, “Chippie.” One day the woman was cleaning Chippie’s cage with a canister vacuum cleaner (without an attachment) when the telephone rang. As she turned to answer the phone, she heard the terrible sound of Chippie being sucked into the vacuum cleaner. Immediately ripping open the vacuum bag, she found Chippie stunned but alive. Since he was covered with soot and dust, she quickly carried him to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and held Chippie under the water to clean him off. When she finished, she held the bird in front of a blast of hot air from a hair dryer to dry him off. The reporter writing the article about the episode concluded the interview with the woman by asking, “How’s Chippie doing now?” Chippie’s owner replied, “Chippie doesn’t sing much anymore. He just sits and stares.”
If I were Chippie, I probably wouldn’t feel like singing. After all, for a parakeet, Chippie’s experiences were incredibly traumatic. It would be easy for him to dwell on the horror of his past events and allow his present outlook to be shaped by it. However, he had something quite remarkable to sing about in reality…he survived! That alone should be worthy of a song!
As followers of Christ, we sing God’s praises and witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ in the context of our honest confession that, yes, sometimes life can be an extremely difficult (and even traumatic) experience. Nevertheless, God’s grace is always sufficient, getting us through the tough times and leading us to look forward in faith rather than backward in fear. The apostle Paul wrote about this in II Corinthians 4.7-10:
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
It’s little wonder that Christians love to sing “Amazing Grace,” with the powerful testimony of its third verse:
Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
‘tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home.
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