This verse intrigues me:

“Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O LORD, in the light of thy countenance” (Psalm 89:15).

What joyful sound? And have I heard it? And do I continue hearing it?

Do I know that sound enough to make it?

I want others to be a source of joyful sounds for me so that I may be blessed. And that’s fine.

I’m challenged, though, to be a source so that others may hear and know and be blessed.

Will the missionaries I’m visiting hear the joyful sound from me today? I hope so! They really need it.

So does my family. So do all the people I meet.

Let me better learn to be an utterer of the joyful sound. (I do well enough already at uttering no sounds or sour sounds.)

Since I am walking in the light of the Lord, how can I not take with me the joyful sound?!

Darkness, death, affliction, abandonment, loneliness, punishment, wrath — that’s Psalm 88 for you.

Dreary? You bet!

But, sometimes, that’s how life seems.

Is.

And, at times, that’s even how we live.

So let me tell you this morning’s lesson for me (as I found it in verses 10-12):

“Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah.”

“Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction?”

“Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?”

Shall I, the living, arise and praise God, remembering and declaring his lovingkindness and righteousness?

Those out in the cemetaries don’t.

Am I no more responsive than they to His wonders, lovingkindness, faithfulness, and righteousness?