I played my first baseball game at eight. I was years behind. My teammates on the Fireballs had been playing together since tee ball. But there was no tee at my first game. I had to hit a ball that was moving. It was dad’s pitch, but it may as well have been Nolan Ryan. Still, the moms sitting behind the backstop in their lawn chairs cheered like I was Babe Ruth. I knew I was bad at it. But the moms and dads cheered for me anyway. They were so supportive. And when I began to get hits, everyone was genuinely excited. Nothing beats a great cheering section when you’re a kid.
And this you know—adults need cheering too. We should strive to be better encouragers—of both the children and adults in our lives.
But here’s what you may not know. NO ONE CHEERS FOR YOU MORE THAN GOD. He loves you, He delights in you, He believes in you!
Dennis Jernigan is a singer-songwriter who has a gift for communicating this truth. Allow me to quote his paraphrase of Zephaniah 3:17:
“The eternal self-existent God, the God Who is three in one; He Who dwells in the center of your being is a powerful and valiant warrior. He has come to set you free, to keep you safe, and to bring you victory. He is cheered and He beams with exceeding joy and takes pleasure in your presence. He has engraved a place for Himself in you and there He quietly rests in His love and affection for you. He cannot contain Himself at the thought of you and with the greatest of joy spins around wildly in anticipation over you … and has placed you above all other creations and in the highest place in His priorities. In fact, He shouts and sings in triumph, joyfully proclaiming the gladness of His heart in a song of rejoicing! All because of you!” Zephaniah 3:17 (paraphrase by Dennis Jernigan).
Jernigan comes to worship from a place of brokenness. He has the most tender, honest heart, and I remember hearing his music and praying that my heart would always remain tender enough to be moved by his lyrics. He explains that God cheers over us, He rejoices over us. He DELIGHTS in us. He enjoys us the way a parent enjoys a child. And Jernigan wrote a song about the way God cheers for His children: “When the Night is Falling.”
I have been singing church music my entire life. I know the lyrics to hundreds of hymns and Christian songs. But “When the Night is Falling,” a little-known song by Dennis Jernigan, is one of the most anointed songs I have ever heard.
Click to hear a song about a GOD WHO SINGS, and as you do, give God a few minutes to sing over YOU:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JADMJVDTwA
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P.S. One day years ago, I too cobbled together my own paraphrase of Zephaniah 3:17, basically an “amplified” version that included all my favorite verbs and nouns. The pic above is that handwritten version.
Household Words: 