Keeping a Song in My Heart

One of the Pathfinder laws is to “keep a song in my heart.”

In the midst of a pandemic and its resulting lockdown, this motto speaks louder than ever. We have not really had the chance to sing along with our church family for a while, and many songs have been kept in our hearts.

At River Plate Adventist University, some of us had made plans to attend the General Conference (GC) Session in Indianapolis with the university choir, Coro Musicap. When the session was postponed, we understood the circumstances and adapted to them.

Since I had attended several General Conference Sessions before, I told my friends in the choir how exciting it is to participate in worship with church members from different parts of the world. It’s an amazing and unforgettable experience to meet so many people who believe the same things and have the same hope.

We have been singing “We Have This Hope,” by Wayne Hooper, using a beautiful arrangement written by our choir director, Denny Luz, with our choir for many years. Whenever we sing it, we see the faces of people in the audiences lighten up.

This beloved hymn, part of many Adventist hymnals around the world, was written as the theme song for the 1962 GC Session, held in San Francisco. It was used again in following sessions. Hooper himself felt certain that the Lord had given him the ideas for this song.¹

During the lockdown we may have seen videos broadcast by different institutions, with virtual orchestras or choirs, in an effort to keep the music alive.

River Plate Adventist University also made a number of recordings, one a special version of “We Have This Hope,” sung by alumni scattered around the world.

Our inability to physically attend worship services during these past months has affected all of us. We can, however, keep this song in our hearts as a symbol of our hope, and remember that we are part of a big family.

“In the full light of day, and in hearing the music of other voices, the caged bird will not sing the song that his master seeks to teach him,” writes Ellen White. “He learns a snatch of this, a trill of that, but never a separate and entire melody. But the master covers the cage, and places it where the bird will listen to the one song he is to sing. In the dark, he tries and tries again to sing that song until it is learned, and he breaks forth in perfect melody. Then the bird is brought forth, and ever after he can sing that song in the light. Thus God deals with His children. He has a song to teach us, and when we have learned it amid the shadows of affliction we can sing it ever afterward.”²

We are not to lose hope, no matter the circumstances. Even in darkness and a pandemic, God has a song to teach us, which will be sung in daylight and later in the light of His presence.

Every Sabbath afternoon, just before sunset, people in my small town stand in the entrance of their homes to sing a hymn everybody has agreed on. If you could visit you could hear the same melody coming out of hundreds of houses simultaneously.

Imagine what singing in heaven will be like!

So take courage.
We have this hope.
We have this song in our heart.

¹ news.adventist.org/en/all-news/news/go/2007-03-01/we-have-this-hope-composer-wayne-hooper-dies/.
² Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1905), p. 472.