Some songs take writers months to compose, others just happen. The song, “Trading My Sorrows”, was not written, it just happened. It happened in the middle of a worship service. Darrell Evans was leading the congregation through a time of prayer. The band was playing softly behind as Darrell prayed. People were coming forward and kneeling. They were figuratively laying things from their lives on the altar. It was a very tender moment. Darrell began to think about his own life. What would he place on the altar? He pictured himself kneeling at the foot of the cross. Darrell thought of how often he had failed. He thought about the shame, the sorrow and the pain in his own life. He thought, “Man, I’d like to trade those things in.” He began singing the words he was thinking. “I’m trading my sorrows. I’m trading my shame. I’m laying them down for the joy of the Lord.” He started out singing these words soft and slow but as the words continued to flow he began to play faster and with more excitement. The tender moment became a moment of celebration. People started lifting their hands in worship and surrender as Darrell started sing, “Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord” as a response to God. The song was born.
Later that week he went to Scripture to complete the song. He came across II Corinthians 4:8-9, “We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” Then from Psalm 5, “Weeping may endure for a night, 
But joy comes in the morning.” Darrell says, “Joy isn’t tested when things are great. Joy and strength are tested when things are difficult. Where are you going to run when things get hard and you don’t understand? I’m going to run to you, God. I don’t get it, but I’m going to trade this in for joy and just know that walking with You is more than enough to carry me through.”

What will you place at the cross. What would you like to “Trade in”? Today is the day to deal with God. He will take your burden and give you joy!

Frederick M. Lehman wrote about love, the love of God. In fact that is the title of his hymn, The Love of God. He wrote the hymn while sitting on an empty lemon crate in Pasadena California. He had pastored mostly in the Midwest but in 1917 he found himself without a church and struggling financially. He took a job at a packing company in Pasadena. He would move thirty tons of lemons and oranges each day. He loved music and one morning he had a song in his head. During a break he sat down wrote two stanzas. He went home that night and sat at his piano and the tune came to him. The problem was that he needed a third stanza. All the hymns of that day had three stanzas. He remembered a sermon he heard recently. The preacher had read a poem that fit perfectly.

Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made

Were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill

And ev’ry man a scribe by trade

To write the love of God above

Would drain the ocean dry

Nor could the scroll contain the whole

Tho’ stretched from sky to sky

The problem was he did not know who wrote these words. He used the verse anyway. Today we know that a Jewish poet in Germany who lived during the eleventh century, Meir Ben Isaac Nehorai, wrote this third stanza. His words, from the eleventh century, fit perfectly with the melody Frederick wrote in the twentieth century. Meir Ben Isaac Nehorai never dreamed that a verse he wrote would be sung by thousands in a land of which he had never heard. What a beautiful expression of Gods love found in this hymn.
God uses us in many different ways; it may be today or may be 800 years from now!

Luke 19:40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

The foundation of the New Testament is the Old Testament. The foundation of the Old Testament is Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.” St. Francis of Assisi wrote our foundation hymn for February 3, 2013, “All Creatures of Our God and King”, 788 years ago in 1225. He used Psalm 148 for his text.

7 Praise the Lord from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
8 lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
stormy winds that do his bidding,
9 you mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars,
10 wild animals and all cattle,
small creatures and flying birds,
11 kings of the earth and all nations,
you princes and all rulers on earth,
12 young men and women,
old men and children.

In Luke chapter 19 we find the disciples and followers of Jesus leading him down the street on a donkey. They are shouting and praising the Lord. “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.” The Pharisees did not like hearing the people proclaiming Jesus as the “The King who comes in the name of the Lord”. So they told Jesus to make his followers “Stop saying things like that”. Jesus then presents the “Law of suppression”. He replied, “If they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers!” Meaning that all of nature knows that He is the King who comes in the name of the Lord and if men will not say these things then nature will.

I remember as a kid swimming in my pool in the backyard. We would always have a beach ball or two to play with. You could play tag with a beach ball. Play volleyball with a beach ball or just float on the beach ball. One thing you could not do with a beach ball was hold it under water for more than a few seconds. It would always pop up. And it would not pop up quietly. It would come shooting out of the water like a man desperate for air.
This is what I think Jesus meant. If mankind stops praising Him all nature will CRY OUT! Not in a quiet whisper. The rocks and stones will shout loud so everyone will hear. “BLESSED IS THE KING WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!”