HOPE: I Cannot Keep From Singing

Passages: Micah 4:1-5 and Psalm 79

By Ariel Gritter 

My Life Flows On: How Can I Keep from Singing?
Glory to God #821

My life flows on in endless song, above earth’s lamentation. I hear the clear, though far-off hymn that hails a new creation.

No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that Rock I’m clinging. Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?

Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear that music ringing. It finds an echo in my soul. How can I keep from singing?

What though my joys and comforts die? I know my Savior liveth. What though the darkness gather round? Songs in the night he giveth.

The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart, a fountain ever springing! All things are mine since I am his! How can I keep from singing?

No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that Rock I’m clinging. Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?

This hymn became my mantra the summer of 2014, after a trip to the Holy Land and the Gaza war that broke out soon after we returned. The plea to help Jerusalem expressed in Psalm 79 surely remains on the lips of her residents today, and we see tumult and strife in our own country, too. This present reality seems so far removed from the wonderful, hopeful vision unfolding in Micah: All people of the world coming to Jerusalem to learn peace! Humming this hymn reminds me of the hope Christ gives our world. Our present reality is not the final word and truly I cannot keep from singing!

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