photo #9093055

Our Daily Bread Ministries March 20 Bible in a Year: Joshua 4-6; Luke 1:1-20 Beyond the Blues In the morning I will sing of your love. Psalm 59:16 READ Psalm 59:9-17 Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot is best known for enduring classics like “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and “If You Could Read My Mind.” But one of his lesser-known songs is titled “The Minstrel of the Dawn.” (A minstrel is a troubadour, a singer who puts his poetry to music.) Like us, Lightfoot’s troubadour longs to be “more happy than blue.” Although there are always “blue” things to think about or dwell on, the minstrel chooses to focus on happy things as the new day dawns and then to sing about them. The minstrel of the psalms, David, penned a similar line: “In the morning I will sing of your love” (Psalm 59:16). David had plenty of “blue” things to dwell on—from enemies ready to attack him to fierce men slandering and conspiring against him (vv. 1-3). “They return at evening,” he sang, “snarling like dogs, and prowl about the city” (v. 14). But he chose, as the new day dawned, to focus not simply on something happy but on someone good—God—and then sing of God’s love, “my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble” (v. 16) on “whom I can rely” (v. 17). You may not be a singer-songwriter, but you can still be a minstrel of the dawn. Like David, you can tell God, “I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love” (v. 16). By John Blase REFLECT & PRAY What is it that makes you blue or causes you concern? What would it look like for you to sing of God’s love in the morning? God my fortress and shield, I’m choosing to sing beyond the blues this morning, to sing of Your steadfast love. Amen.