A Song He Could Never Hear

In 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven stood on a stage in Vienna conducting the premiere of his Ninth Symphony. He was fifty-three years old and profoundly deaf. He could not hear a single note of what many would call the greatest piece of music ever composed. When the final movement ended — that soaring Ode to Joy — the audience erupted. But Beethoven kept conducting, lost in a silence the rest of the room would never know. A soloist finally walked over and gently turned him around so he could see what he could not hear: an entire theater on its feet, many of them weeping.

He had composed a hymn to joy and human brotherhood from inside a prison of silence. He wrote hope into every measure while living in the very condition that should have made hope impossible.

This is what the prophet Habakkuk understood when he wrote, "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, yet I will rejoice in the Lord" (Habakkuk 3:17-18). Biblical hope has never been the product of favorable circumstances. It is something deeper — a melody the Spirit writes on the human heart that no suffering can silence.

You may be in a season where you cannot hear the music of God's goodness. The silence feels total. But the Almighty is not limited by what you can perceive. He is composing something through your life that will bring others to their feet. Keep conducting. The symphony is not over.