I’ll set the scene…a Young Life leadership meeting when Ernie was in college. It was 2003 so no doubt they were singing “I Can Only Imagine” and there’s also no hesitation for me to assert that there was some Michael W. Smith afoot. The real song that Ernie had waited, maybe his whole life for, was a song by none other than the pseudo-renowned Puerto Bello known as “Jesus Be The Center”.
...Ernie begins to giggle endlessly and then leans over to his friend Jason Schrader. Ernie whispers something into Jason’s ear…Jason begins to giggle uncontrollably.
What is it that Ernie and Jason were giggling about, you ask?
Ernie has substituted the word “Center” with “Centaur”
Jesus be the…yep, he said it…Centaur.
Half Savior-Half Horse…all awesome.
This story includes one of the funniest aspects of Ernie to me. Ernie is completely tone-deaf. We’re not even talking about a relative understanding of pitch, melody or harmony. But, even in the depths of his tone-deafness, Ernie has an ability to do something brilliant. When Ernie is singing he is usually completely off pitch but he has his moments, even sustained ones, where he is in pitch or even more amazingly in perfect 4th or 5th harmony.
Ernie may have little understanding of pitch or natural inclination for singing but he has moments of shear brilliance.
Spiritually I think we are all much more like Ernie than we may know or even want to admit. The Spirit of God has been set loose into our world and is setting a pace, pitch and rhythm to our world but most of us miss it entirely or are like Ernie and are tone-deaf.
There are times for us, like Ernie, where we have moments of complete and utter brilliance. There are times where our lives are so in tune with Jesus and we catch a beautiful glimpse of what life is meant to be. There are other times where we feel so utterly dissonant that we just want to stop singing.
This also explains in my mind how people I know who don’t know Jesus can display so much of what ultimate reality is. Whether it’s Ghandi, Oprah or the Peace Corps, people who are without personal relationship with Christ still have amazing moments of being in tune with the Spirit of God.
To draw out this analogy more thoroughly lets talk about the aspect of harmony in music. Donald Miller in a sermon given to Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, MI said “I think that too many people are going to God for every decision in their lives asking him, ‘what should I do with my life?’ ‘Should I do this or that?’ well, what if God has opened all of these doors and wants us to live a life that is a story worth telling. A story that, in the end, finishes with us standing before God with him saying, ‘well done, my good and faithful servant.’”
When we live lives like this…stories worth being told I think that we then come to a place where we can sing in harmony to the Spirit of God. In order for us to be in harmony with Christ we have to be both listening for our reference and courageous to sing our mirrored melody.
Similar to the adage ‘it takes two to tango’ it also takes two to harmonize. There are times when we are going to be out of pitch with both Christ’s spirit and other people in our lives, whether housemates, roommates, teammates or friends. The trick with learning to sing together is to not keep a record of wrongs or to point fingers because the truth is that we may, just as easily, been the one who was out of pitch.
Many friends of mine are musicians and one of my friends who is particularly talented told me recently that the best thing he’s discovered in recent years for helping him to sing in pitch with his band mates are his in-ear monitors. He says that when he is able to hear his band mates he is filled with confidence and can sing his own parts more confidently and clearly.
Similarly, we have in-ear monitor by having the Holy Spirit reside inside of us. If we learn to listen to God’s spirit inside of us, can you imagine the songs we could begin to sing? Having the confidence of the creator of the universe backing us up? Imagine what could happen in this world if we began to live lives that harmonize with God’s Holy Spirit? Maybe that’s the heart of MercyMe’s song, “I can only imagine.”
May we learn to slow down and listen to the melody being lead by God’s spirit.
May we learn to live in harmony within our communities.
May we learn to listen to Christ daily, may we learn to trust our in-ear monitors and let them fill us with confidence.
1 comment:
i think you need a trophy after this week is over. it was all about ernie but you still made it consistent with your usual blogging style. bravo
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