Oswald Chambers | Prayers and Promises

Songbirds are taught to sing in the dark…

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,

When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,

When he beats his bars and would be free;

It is not a carol of joy or glee,

But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,

But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings –

I know why the caged bird sings.

– Paul Lawrence Dunbar, from the poem “Sympathy”

“In the full light of day, and in hearing of the music of other voices,

the caged bird will not sing the song that his master seeks to teach him.

He learns a snatch of this, a trill of that, but never a separate and entire melody.

But the master covers the cage, and places it where the bird will listen to the one song he is to sing.

In the dark, he tries and tries again to sing that song until it is learned, and he breaks forth in perfect melody.

Then the bird is brought forth, and ever after he can sing that song in the light.

Thus God deals with His children.

He has a song to teach us, and when we have learned it amid the shadows of affliction we can sing it ever afterward”

(E.G.White, Ministry of Healing, p. 472).

“At times God puts us through the discipline of darkness to teach us to heed Him.

Songbirds are taught to sing in the dark, and we are put into the shadow of God’s hand until we learn to hear Him.

‘What I tell you in darkness,’–watch where God puts you into darkness, and when you are there keep your mouth shut.

Are you in the dark just now in your circumstances, or in your life with God?

Then remain quiet.

If you open your mouth in the dark, you will talk in the wrong mood: darkness is the time to listen.

Don’t talk to other people about it; don’t read books to find out the reason of the darkness, but listen and heed.

If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying.

When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else when you get into the light.”

(Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest)