Jennifer Clements, GFC Van Dyke

Have you ever listened to a song on repeat so much that you know every single part? You’ve heard it so much that you know all the musical runs, rest, and ad libs.  I find that on Sunday mornings I just love when my favorite singer sings my favorite song and I can match their sweet spots (or at least think I can ;)).

The sanctuary is large, and we have so many people that I can’t truly hear my own voice, so to myself, I sound like a rock star for Jesus!  The problem with this is that sometimes I’m not singing from my true voice, I’m imitating the voice on stage. I discover this when I get home and sing while washing the dishes or in the car driving my kids to school.  A true tell is when my kids ask me to turn the volume up because they're trying to drown me out. THAT is how you know you’re not a great singer.

One day while worshipping I discovered that my joyful noise didn’t need to sound like CeCe Winans or Tasha Cobb to be pleasant in the ear of our Father.  My joyful noise and true worship may be off beat or out of rhythm but He’s okay with that. God did not go through the work of making you and me a creative masterpiece to have us imitate another masterpiece.

The same applies to all acts of worship.  God doesn’t want our imitation. He desires our acceptance of His invitation to worship Him in spirit and in truth, in our real voice. Today as we walk with Him, as we worship Him and as we live for Him, let's accept His invitation to never be an imitation and even when we feel deficient, to know and rest in that there’s an abundance of grace. If you catch me belting the lyrics to a song in the sanctuary off key and clapping off beat, please don’t write me a mental praise inspector ticket. ;) Instead, join me and know that this is me choosing to worship our Father in my truthful voice because I know that He delights in me.

"For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:8-10