Sometimes it's easy to feel like you're a bird locked up in a cage wanting to be free. Your cage may be your painful memories, a broken heart, or a broken dream.
Maybe you're caged in by an addiction, a habit, or some anger that is eating you up inside. It also might be depression or even suicidal thoughts that have you held in. There's a cover on that cage, whatever it is. It's dark in there and there isn't anything to sing about.
There's good news for you in the Word of God found in Psalm 40. King David said, "The Lord turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth." The cover came off his dark cage and gave him a reason to sing!
The same Lord who did that for King David wants to do that for you. That's why Jesus Christ came. He says, "The Lord has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release the prisoners from darkness" (Isaiah 61:1). Someone bigger and more powerful needs to come along to remove the cover and release you from the darkness. The Savior came to do that for you. He came to die for your darkness and your sin - to remove your death sentence. When you tell Jesus you are trusting Him completely for a relationship with God, the cover comes off!
All the guilt and shame of the past can be forgiven. So many people say right after they've trusted Christ, "I feel like a hundred pounds has just been lifted off my shoulders." The pain is suddenly lightened because God Himself has picked it up. The dark feelings and power that may have kept you in the darkness can be replaced by an unexplainable personal peace. Freedom is your choice. The release from darkness comes when you open your heart to Jesus, which could be this very day. There's light to replace your darkness and a song that can replace your sadness, the day you let Jesus lift that cover off your life! You can be free!