It's Not A Requirement To Have A Great Voice

The sun was shining Friday morning as I was driving from Kalamazoo to Grand Rapids.

Jackie and I had just finished a stretch of 11 straight evenings with family,  praying for our nephew Matt who is lost on Mt. Fuji.  As happens in situations like this, your world stops.  It wasn't just evening prayer.  It was through the day between work and in the middle of the night when you wake up prayer.  On top of that our daughter Becky set up a "Please pray for Matt Johnson" group site on Face Book that grew to over 3000 members.  Many people posted prayers, stories and encouragement, and I read them all.

It finally came to a point Wednesday night where searchers had covered all logical areas where Matt could still be found alive, but came up empty.  We believe that the God who made the mountains can move them as well, that Matt is with Him, and that He will be glorified through this.  But we grieve for Matt and for his family.

So I'm driving to Kalamazoo on that beautiful Friday morning, just praising God out loud, and this is lifting my spirits.  After I get to work I phone Jackie who seemed to be down that morning to tell her to get out of the house, get in her car, and drive somewhere like Holland and just praise the Lord.  She decides to take my advice and stops at Christian Family Bookstore to pick up two worship CD's to play during the drive.

I asked Jackie that night if the CD's were any good and that I would like to borrow one for my commute the next day.  She said that they were OK, not great, and which one would I like to borrow.  One was more old time traditional prayer meeting songs and the other was a CD called TOP 25 WORSHIP SONGS.  I took the TOP 25 and put disk 2 in my player for the ride home.

OMG!  Which in the case of this worship CD stands for - oh my goody good goodness :)  Here I was, in the mood for some raw, shout it out the roof to the Lord praise, and I get a disk that happened to ruin most of my favorite worship songs.  Imagine hearing DAYS OF ELIJAH done by a 4 piece band in the back of a nice restaurant, the drummer having one of those brushes that swish against the cymbals and the singer crooning "There is no God like Jehovah, um um um".

Slow beat, no emotion, just words to the god of commence by a studio singer.  Every song was that way.  No crying out to my precious Lord in the car today.  I told Jackie when I got home that if I'm ever unconscious in the CU, please play these.  I'd be sure to pop up to hit the off button.

On one of those nights when we were meeting as a family to pray for Matt my son-in-law Dave, who has a beautiful voice, came over to play the guitar and to lead our worship singing.  Sitting next to him was Matt's brother-in-law Ben, also blessed with a great voice.  Dave has played for own family meetings before and he was pleasantly surprised that he was sitting next to someone who could actually carry a tune.  I think Dave was looking at me when he whispered to Ben, "Thanks man".

I guess it's for the best.  Closing my eyes and raising my hands while driving probably beats texting as a dangerous driving distraction.  But I don't want to fall asleep at the wheel either.