Dan's Thoughts

Vision #16 - July 25, 2006

Myrna Summers is the minister of music at Reid Tabernacle, A.M.E. in Washington, D.C. Before she accepted that prestigious position, she had already enjoyed a long and very distinguished career. Sunday, we found out why. After singing a rousing number with our choir, she went to the piano and began searching for the mind of Christ. Her hands played chords while she sang lines from old hymns. Line after line, she kept slowing everything down until our planned program just came to a halt for a while. Finally she was reduced to singing just one line over and over, mournfully and soulfully, “Lord, give me more sorrow.”

The line made me nervous. I don’t want any more sorrow! But she kept singing anyway, with her eyes closed and her spirit fully focused, “Lord, give me more sorrow.” She sang until her voice had become a whisper. Her notes had become all drawn out, heavy with the deep passion they were bearing. Finally, she sang the line for the last time, “Lord, give me more sorrow – for sin.”

When her music stopped, we were all naked before God. She had opened our souls.

The next day I was talking to a musician in our church named Scat Springs. Since he had not been in the service the day before, I told him about it. So he told me about a service he had experienced as a boy in a small country church. An old lady had started singing a single word, slowly, deliberately and passionately – “Calvary, Calvary.” After a while, several of the ladies had joined in, moaning in strange and haunting harmonies the same single word, “Calvary, Calvary.” Then, he said, they all stopped. The original singer concluded the extemporaneous melody by slowly singing the phrase, “he set my soul free at Calvary.” Scat said that the memory of that simple musical prayer was seared into his being that day. He will never forget it.

We have to slow down if we want to hear from God. We also have to be willing to stumble. Myrna took a chance Sunday. She could have gotten stuck with “give me more sorrow,” which is not a good prayer at all! No artist wants to bomb like that. The old lady in Scat’s little church took a chance too. The moment could have concluded with the single word, “Calvary.” But in both situations, more did come. Not a lot more, but all the moments required. Like the little boy’s small fishes and loaves, sometimes all God needs is for us to offer two or three words. He can use those words to feed a lot of folk.

I started another Dave Ramsey book today. It’s called, More Than Enough.

Like Myrna, Dave just keeps singing his little lines: “Get Outta Debt.” “Pay Your Tithe.” “Save some money.” “Make a plan.”

The lines don’t sit well with me. They sound too much like, “Give me more sorrow. Give me more sorrow.” But if I quiet down, I can feel the rumbling behind his lines. A powerful voice is singing through Dave. Dave is just stumbling around, trying to find what God wants to say to His people. If we have the patience to listen, we will hear that other voice, the One that makes all the difference. What that voice says is, “The enemy comes to kill, to steal and to destroy but I have come that you might have life in abundance.” You can dismiss Dave’s words if you want; you sure don’t want to miss out on what happens when Dave’s music finally stops.

You have to stay with the music until you hear the punch line though.

Who would have thought that sorrow for sin could suddenly become joy unspeakable? Who would think that getting out of debt could result in a freedom to become all God created us to be? You just can’t find connections like that unless you slow down a bit, stop hurrying through the music, stop buying things you don’t need and start feeling your soul.

God sure has some weird friends! But they get the job done if we’ll just listen to them.

Dan