Life's Musical Road

Spiritual Issues 

Did you read yesterday's “Quote of the Day”?

What a thought – that our life consists of a song.

Music has been such a part of my life. Ever since I was a baby I've been surrounded by music. My mom loves to sing, she was part of the choir, she taught her Sunday school class to sing, she taught my siblings and I to sing rounds. We learned memory verses, definitions, history facts, multiplication, all by putting them to a tune. Classical music or hymns was the background of my childhood. Music was part of church, part of school, part of nap time, after dinner... Life and music held no separation. As I grew up music was part of my existence. It helped me through highschool, we sang during chores, my siblings made a CD, we were asked to sing during community events. It's still part of my life...I sing in the shower, I hum when I drive, I dance to Scottish Highland music, I teach Sign Language with it, I sing when I'm sad, when I am happy...when I pray. I can relate to music... My life being one long song just makes sense.

He creates an unique symphony for each of us. I think of the personalities I am surrounded with and it makes me smile. Some lives are filled with crescendos and trills...others are steady rhythms, deep and calm.

I think everyone would like to imagine that their life is the most unique of all. There's something special about being different than everyone else. But I think my song is rather common. He sings a simple song that I can follow. I'm okay with that.

Although, recently, my song has turned darker. Quietly He has added minor chords and I falter in my harmony. I have found I cannot dictate the arrangement to my liking. He has set the melody. I am allowed the choice to sing harmony or clash in discontented notes of complaint. Singing my own tune get's me nowhere.

Sometimes I try to sing my own melody. If I concentrate really hard I can hear it...I think it sounds beautiful. Have you ever accidentally played two music tracks at once? It doesn't matter how beautifully mastered they are as separate tracks...playing together it's just disconnected noise. That's what happens when I sing my own tune. It clashes with His melody and all I create is noise. It's noticeable to everyone I'm around.

I can't change the minors. My circumstances, my health, my relationships are all notes He sings. Sometimes obedience is a hard tune to learn. Trusting Him and just following His choice in melody is difficult. Suffering seems to clash with what I expected Him to sing. But through the dark minors of suffering I have learned to obey. And obedience is the “rhythm of two wills...that blends their action into rarest harmony”. Christ too, “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.” (Hebrews 5:8) Is it possible that He has chosen to add a stanza of His own life into my simple little song? If that is how He learned to harmonize than why should I scoff?

“It was no relief from temporal evils that the Apostle promised. ...No; the mercy of God might send them to the stake, or the lions; it was still His mercy; if it but kept them 'unspotted by the world.' It might expose them to insult, calumny, and wrong; they received it still as mercy, if it 'established them in every good work...'. O brethren! How many of you are content with such faithfulness as this on the part of our heavenly Father? Is this, indeed, the tone and tenor of your prayers? – W.M. Archer Butler

What is the tone and tenor of my prayers? Surely while He sings His ear must strain to hear my harmony. When pain comes it is but a chance to learn harmony. Suddenly I pause to hear what He is singing. “Evil” circumstances give me a desire to listen more carefully.

This is an odd road of music He has given me. But I am thankful. Maybe one day I will be able to hear the whole song from start to finish and it will all make sense. But for now, I'm willing to simply follow His melody and sing harmony the best I know how. Sing soul, sing!