Sitting on the Porch

I have big boxes full of CDs that perhaps should not have been made, including some of my own. They represent many thousands of dollars and hours, not to mention the passions and sweat of hundreds of musicians.

There’s the old “Christian kindness” thing when you ask someone, “How did you like that song?” Well, who’s going to tell you it sucks? Since nobody is willing to be the Simon Cowell of Christian music, everyone tells you it’s great, and they also tell you that you sing great.

Five grand and hundreds of hours later, you get a thousand CDs back from Discmakers that will most likely hang out in a closet for years to come. Well, maybe you suck at this type of thing.

Believe it or not, I’m an incredibly optimistic person. I’m also smarter than I look, and a whole lot more fun than I seem.

There are great singers, regular singers, and really really bad singers.

I say things like this knowing well that everyone who reads this will think I’m talking about someone else. Maybe I am talking to someone else. Maybe you’re the “one.” Maybe you can sing great, and are a great musician. Maybe you just suck at marketing, or one of the many other things needed to get somewhere.

There are great singers, regular singers, and really really bad singers. Maybe you are a great singer – maybe you’re somewhere else on the scale. Everyone should know where they are.

If you suck at singing, does that mean that there is no place for you in ministry? Absolutely not. “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.” Not everyone can be the head, or the eyes, or the voice. But that doesn’t mean that you are any less vital to the Body of Christ.

In a sermon called “A Tool in the Hand of the Master,” I remember Chuck Swindoll saying that it is not our job to know the whole plan of God. A screwdriver is supposed to do one thing well, and that is to turn the screw. The screwdriver doesn’t know that it is assembling a Rolls Royce, only that it does its job well. The screw it turns it is no less important than any other part, but the sum of the parts is beautiful.

“A hammer makes a poor screwdriver.” We should all find out what kind of tool we are in the hand of the Master. If you find out that you really do suck at something, you may be trying to drive a nail with a screwdriver, or turning a screw with a hammer.

Maybe this will turn into a discovery of who we are in Christ, and which part we play.

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