Sing Like Susan Boyle

We could call it from rags to riches, from scorn to adulation and from obscurity to prominence. Hyperbole is no excess in describing the noble ascendancy of British singer Susan Boyle. She stunned the Britain’s Got Talent show, evoking the highest praise from the three judges. In fact, one declared it was the biggest surprise he’d had in three years of the show. “When you stood there with that cheeky grin…everyone was laughing at you. No one is laughing now. That was an incredible performance. Amazing. I am reeling from shock.”

From an obscure village in Scotland, the unknown 47-year old with a homespun spinster image had walked alone to center stage and declared her desire to be a famous singer. As cameras zoomed in to the incredulous expressions of the judges, who thought her singing was to be a pathetic joke, Boyle broke into glorious song and stunned everyone with “I Dreamed a Dream”, a poignant lyric of hopes gone sour, from the musical Les Miserables.

Presently, judges and audience thought they were dreaming. Only a few phrases in, judges and audience were on their feet in raucous approving applause.

One judge declared his approval saying, “It is the biggest ‘yes’ [vote] I’ve ever given anybody.” Another stated, “We were all being very cynical. That was the greatest wake up call ever… It was a complete privilege listening to that.” The final judge said, “Susan Boyle, you can go back to your village with your head held high and three ‘yes’s.”

As of the morning of April 20, the YouTube clip of Boyle had 33,570,148 views. The millions of hits attest to her global honor. Boyles’ sudden catapult from obscurity to prominence gives common people hope and dignifies those whose dreams may have indeed died but for whom hope still lingers.

Musically, I am reminded of Bible songs sung in the clutches of stressful disappointment or rhymed out of dismal brushes with despair or even death itself. When blind Fanny Crosby penned, “I know I shall see in His beauty the King in whose law I delight, Who lovingly guardeth my footsteps and giveth me songs in the night,” she drew on several Old Testament texts: “Your eyes will see the King in his beauty: they will see the land that is very far off” (Isaiah 33:17), “Uphold my steps in Your paths, That my footsteps may not slip” (Psalm 17:5), and “But no one says, ‘Where is God my maker, who gives songs in the night” (Job 35:10).

After a severe beating, Paul and Silas spent the night in a Philippian jail singing. “But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them” (Acts 16:25).

After ragged and harassed Israel walked through the parted sea and stood on the safe and farther shore, Moses sang a song of redemption found in Exodus 15, a song to erupt from our lips in Heaven as Revelation 15:3 & 4 foretells. “They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: “Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints! Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. For all nations shall come and worship before You, For Your judgments have been manifested.”

God puts a new song of redemption in every convert’s heart. “And he has put a new song in my mouth—praise to our God; Many shall see it and fear, And will trust in the LORD” (Ps. 40:3). We may wonder how a song can be seen. Susan Boyle has surely shown it as a secular performer. She sang, and suddenly the world is watching.

God has His little obscure people throughout His Kingdom, yet so often “Little Is Much When God Is in It,” as the old Gospel song says. Isaiah 58:10 promises, “If you extend your soul to the hungry And satisfy the afflicted soul, Then your light shall dawn in the darkness, And your darkness shall be as the noonday…”

We may not look like much, nor do we all have impressive talent, but “singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,” as Ephesians 5:19 enjoins, is a far-reaching success story that can circle the earth and be joyfully heard in Heaven.

Dave Virkler