What Does God Want to Hear?

In looking at my Bible I find that of all the pursuits, singing sits fairly far up on the list. Oh, yes, we read about praying and begetting, even fighting, but singing seems to appear from Genesis to Revelation. Yes, we read about singing more than any other occupation we will have in Heaven.

When I think about the references to singing in the Bible, I don’t read too often that we should leave it to a soloist. Sometimes choirs do the job, but most of the time, singing is done by EVERYONE.

When I think of the activity of singing during my lifetime, I go back to my childhood where I sat next to my parents in church and heard them lustily participate with all the other farmers and wives, unashamedly. Yes, they sang, not thinking anything particularly strange about doing so. We sang around the piano at home. My sister and I sang while we washed and dried the dishes after the evening meal. We even sang rounds together.

When I think about singing now in the 21st century, it amazes me how ignorant, how self-conscious, how reticent people act. (By the way, I hope the thousands of music students I’ve had during my life of teaching are different!) After hearing and seeing on TV how strongly the Canadians sang their anthem at the last Olympics, I am ashamed that we do such a poor job of getting everyone to join in when our anthem is presented in public. Why do we think we need some pop singer to “interpret” the song in his or her genre, making it impossible to sing along?

When I teach children singing, even church children, I find that many have rarely sung before I introduce it to them. Even when I do get them to sing in unison, they have a difficult time holding a pitch, or hanging onto a line of a familiar song enough to try singing in a round, thus revealing their dependence on others.

I blame the adults who seem to think it is more sophisticated to “listen” to music rather than to “make” it. What a disservice we do to our children and to ourselves.

One of the joys God gave us at creation was singing, and He will expect us to honor Him in Heaven with our voices. Will we even know how? I hope so!