The Monday After • Nov 17, 2025
Can You Imagine Hearing God Sing?
Darren Carlson
Can you imagine hearing God sing? With a word, he spoke the universe into being. What would happen if the God who speaks also lifted his voice to sing?
"The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing." (Zeph. 3:17)
God does not save begrudgingly. He isn't muttering, "Oh no, I saved Darren—what a mistake." We must never imagine that God let himself down. To portray him as happy, exuberant, celebrating—this does not belittle God. Heaven does not frown at God's joy. Let that quiet you. Let it silence the inner prosecutor. Let it free you to sing.
A more literal rendering of verse 17 reads:
Over you he will delight;
Over you he will rejoice with singing.
Over you he will be quiet in his love.
Parents, have you ever held a restless child and, almost by instinct, begun to sing over them until they settled? That is the picture: God himself singing over his people to calm them, to steady them, to assure them.
And when I hear that God will sing over me, I think the only response I can think of is silence. To listen to his voice. To be calmed by his presence and not terrorized, as He rejoices over me. Could there be anything better?
You know what it is to be "welcomed" by someone who isn't glad you came. Not so with our Father. When the Father rejoices over a people redeemed in Christ, he delights in his own handiwork.
The intensity is unembarrassed—loud singing.
How about a story from Witness...
After a long day of meetings, I drove from Minneapolis to Jamestown, North Dakota. When I arrived at my hotel, I hit an unexpected hiccup: they couldn't find my reservation. When I showed them my confirmation, it turned out I had accidentally booked for the following Wednesday. With no rooms available, I quickly searched online for another hotel, picked one from the screen, and drove a few miles down the road.
When I walked into the new hotel, I noticed the man at the front desk had an ESV Study Bible. Out of curiosity, I asked him about it. To my surprise, he had bought it to challenge his Christian friends about their faith.
I engaged him in conversation, asking questions. Coincidentally, I had recently been with some of the individuals responsible for editing that very study Bible. His reaction was a mix of disbelief and intrigue, and he repeatedly asked, "I can't believe you just walked in here. Why is this happening?"
I appreciated his authenticity. He posed thought-provoking questions and shared his confusion about churches he'd visited. Our dialogue veered into deep topics like the resurrection, ancient manuscripts, Old Testament laws, and more. I asked him to give me his best arguments against the resurrection, and then I provided the best argument for it, encouraging him to start there and work backward through his other questions.
This encounter felt like a divine redirect. Why else would I, out of the blue, decide to stay in Jamestown (which I had never done before), mistakenly book a hotel for the wrong dates, and randomly end up at his hotel? And why was he there that night, with the ESV Study Bible out, if not to meet an ambassador of the gospel?
One of my favorite novels of all time is Quo Vadis.
Set in the brutal days of Nero, it weaves together a love story, historical drama, and a powerful apologetic for the Christian faith. You feel the cost of discipleship in the first century—and the beauty of Christ—in a way that lingers long after you're done. The author won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1905 partly because of this book, and it's one of the few novels that made both Amy and I cry. I'll be honest, the first 100 pages are a slog, but if you can make it, the payoff is worth it.
Thanks for checking in.
Sign up here to receive Darren Carlson's The Monday After email. This weekly newsletter is designed to encourage your faith and share inspiring stories of what God is doing around the world. Each edition features a short devotional, a story that will give you a glimpse of His work in unexpected places, and a resource you might find helpful.
9.14.26When the Towers Fell
It took 99 days to extinguish the fires. Last week we marked the 25th anniversary of 9/11. My parents' generation remembers where they were when John F. Kennedy was killed. I vaguely remember the Challenger exploding on television. But for Generation X and many millennials, 9/11 is the event in American […]
9.7.26On Therapy Culture
A woman in her 20s at your church has an Instagram bio that reads, before her name, before a single photo: ADHD. Anxiety. CPTSD. Not what she loves or enjoys. Just a diagnosis to frame her life. The rising generation has received more therapy than any generation before it. The journalist […]
8.31.26On Being Known
I will never forget Maie Sullivan. Adopted from an orphanage that was bombed by Russians two days later. Fled with her adopted family from Estonia to Sweden, where Nazi planes tried to bomb the train they were on. Grew up with her family in an insane asylum where her father worked […]
8.24.26You Read People Wrong
You talk to a friend and walk away from the conversation convinced you heard exactly what they said and meant, only to find out you misunderstood what they were trying to tell you. Has that happened to anyone else? William Ickes has spent a career measuring something most of us assume […]
