The Lord is the author of newness and freshness. He especially does not copy and paste when it comes to relationships. Neither should we – or our relationships will be merely ritual and void of any meaning. “Sing to the Lord a new song!” is challenging us to come up with a new tune for the Almighty, and I think abandoning rituals is part of it.

We all understand this is an all-inclusive invitation (i.e. let the whole earth sing a new song to the Lord), which is not meant to turn us all into music composers and songwriters – although wouldn’t that be a fun experiment? We’d come up with some innovative compositions, for sure! Note that all the earth is included, animals, plants, humanity, everything that makes Earth our home planet, and that begs the question what exactly does singing a new song entail?

Everybody who knows me has to put up with my sunset and sunrise shots I publish on social media every time we run into a beautiful sky display. I’m a die-hard fan of sunrises and sunsets because they are never the same. The skies above literally sing a new song to the Lord every single day. Well, here is our challenge: Can we be just as varied in our response to God’s faithfulness?

We can thank God in so many ways. As much as the sky is the limit, our creativity can know no bounds. We can sing to the Lord a new song simply by being real and personal in how we interact with the Lord. God knows our heart’s language and understands exactly how we feel, even if we run out of words. Who knows? In the eyes of the Lord our prayers may very well look like the colors of dawn or the colors of a fiery sunset.

In the words of James Taylor:

“Well the sun is surely sinking down, but the moon is slowly rising.
So this old world must still be spinning round and I still love you.

So close your eyes, you can close your eyes, it’s all right.
I don’t know no love songs and I can’t sing the blues anymore.
But I can sing this song and you can sing this song when I’m gone.”