I can't sing. Well, I can, but not always in tune, as anyone who has stood next to me in church will testify. But while I may not be a great, or even a tuneful singer, I love to belt out my favourite songs with gusto. I drive my family nuts with my poor renditions of 80's rock - with Midnight Oil my speciality. Most of all, I revel in singing 'worship music'; ranging from Chris Tomlin to Charles Wesley - contemporary to classic. I sing in the shower, the car, at the meal table, and as I walk. I sing in church, and out. I love to 'make a joyful noise to The Lord.' (Psalm 98:4 KJV) But then last week I found myself in the awful situation of not only being unable to sing tunefully, but not able to sing at all - and not just anywhere, but in the company of twenty thousand fellow worshippers at Hillsong conference in Sydney.
Hillsong is a four day conference that is framed and bracketed with times of extended worship. The daily conference program features at least ninety minutes of corporate singing, spread over a program that runs from 9.30 in the morning to 9.00 at night. It is exuberant, joy-filled and most of all, God honouring and directed. I love it. But this year was different; this year I arrived at conference with a 'man-cold' - that dreaded and debilitating disease. My symptoms included a nose that ran like a tap, sore throat, a hacking cough and a very scratchy voice that was incapable of singing, let alone making a joyful noise. And so I discovered the considerable frustration of wanting to sing, being surrounded by thousands of people who were singing, and not being able to join them. I hated it.
On the second night of conference, high in the arena with other Newlife friends, I watched on as others filled their lungs with joy and the room with noise. I wasn't idle - I made sure I was feeling sorry for myself. I was holding my very own pity party, where I was the honoured and only guest. But then Kylie noticed my lack of engagement, and knowing that I had a 'man-cold' (one of the symptoms of such is that you make sure EVERYONE knows you have it), offered me some advice that shifted something in me.
She said something like , 'Why don't you just mouth the words?'
Huh.
'Well, why not?' I thought.
And so for the next couple of songs, and then a number of times thorough the rest of the week, that's what I did. When others were singing, I opened my mouth as if to sing, forming the words with my mouth and lips, but with no sound coming from me. It was weird at first. Actually, it was weird every time I did it - but a good sort of 'weird', the sort of 'weird' where you think you might have stumbled on to something. And then I did stumble on to something, of rather something stumbled on to me - a revelation of sorts.
As I mouthed the words to a song my voice could not sing, God spoke to me. Not with a booming voice (I'm still waiting for that one) but in the stillness of my heart, a heart that at least for a moment was inclined towards him. What I heard God say was something like this:
'Stuart, now you know you can worship me with your limitations, not in spite of them.'
Now, that might not sound earth shattering to you, but for me in that moment it was a crystal clear 'word of the Lord'.
I love to worship God with my strengths - with the gifts of leadership and teaching he has given me. But as I mouthed the words to songs I could not sing, God reminded me that I can worship him just as much with my weaknesses as I can with my strengths. It is in my weakness that worship is as much a choice as it is a natural outflow from a life that knows it is blessed. It's in worshiping in my weakness I am reminded where my true strength lays. It's in worshipping in weakness I discover that God's grace truly is sufficient, and that his power is perfected in me (2 Corinthians 12:8). It's in weakness I'm reminded that worship begins and ends with what God has done and is doing in me, not what I 'do' for God. It's in worshipping in weakness I experience the God who is present in and through all circumstances.
This man-cold has hung on in various forms for almost a month now. My voice is slowly returning. But now I know that I can sing and make a joyful 'noise' to the Lord - that I can worship - even when my voice is nothing but a scratchy rasp.
Comments