Have you ever let a friend see you at your worst? One instance stands out for me. Fifteen years ago, I spilled my guts to a friend about everything missing in my life. I must have sounded so pathetic and immature.

But she didn’t tell me to be content.  She didn’t tell me I was wrong to want those things. She spoke four words that have stuck with me my whole adult life:

“Sing into your barrenness.”

She never explained it, but I knew instantly what it meant for me. It meant actively moving toward God’s promises by singing their fulfillment.

The things I wanted were things God wanted for me. Things He had promised. It wasn’t a question of Him satisfying my desire or not, it was more an issue of preventing my heart from hardening while I waited.

There’s also this mysterious collaborative aspect of God’s character. He’s the only one who can do it all. But for some reason, He wants to partner with His imperfect kids.

Here’s an example:

The Israelites have already tried whining, complaining, and accusation to get water, with mixed results. When they reach a place called Be-er, or “well,” the well is empty.

God tells Moses to assemble the people so He can give them water. But then something strange happens:

They sing to the well.

“Spring up, O well! Sing to it!…”

They’re not singing to God. They’re not singing encouragement to their own souls. They’re singing to the (empty) well. Does this sound odd to anyone else? Is it some kind of spiritual hocus pocus?

Maybe not. God had already promised to give them water. They were singing in agreement with His promises.

His voice spoke everything from nothing. He can speak the fulfillment of His promises to you anytime He wants. But when He promises to give you water in the desert, He wants to use your voice to do it.

The most surprising thing about this passage?

There’s no punch line.

We don’t know if the well miraculously filled with water or not. We’re just told they continued on their journey,

“…to Mattanah, and from Mattanah to Nahaliel…”

“Mattanah” means “gift.” But we don’t know if God gave them water there either. So let’s move on to Nahaliel. It means “stream of God.”

Did you catch that?!

First God tells them to assemble so He can give them water. Then they sing to an empty well.  Then God takes them somewhere else. Finally, after all that, He brings them to His stream.

They sang in agreement with His promise to give them water, and (later) He gave them living water. His water.

Singing into your barrenness isn’t a short cut. It’s a way to protect your thirsty heart while you wait.

(Here are couple of examples of how our family sang into our barrenness when we needed God to move on our behalf. The first is a song my son wrote when he was three, and the second is Moses’ song of victory. It became our family anthem during that season)

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What promise are you singing into?