Lately I have gotten into listening to praise songs a lot. It all started a few weeks ago. I had heard a song on the radio as I was driving to appointments and I did not have my Shazam loaded so I couldn’t identify the person or group who was singing it. I heard it two days in a row and it was beautiful. I really wanted to hear it again. So I listened and I listened and I listened. I did not hear it again.

I kept searching for the song and as I was searching I became aware of something happening. I was beginning to really prefer listening to Christian music over anything else. I have listened to preaching on the radio but I have never been someone that has really cared to listen to Christian music that much. In fact, most times I even try to slip in late to church so that I don’t have to sing.

You see the problem is not that I don’t like hearing praise music. I have no problem with that. The problem is that I like to sing along and I don’t really have a singing voice. Recently I started thinking about that. A lot of people don’t have good voices but that doesn’t stop them from singing praises to God. In the Bible it never says that you have to be in tune. In fact in some verses it says that you are to make a joyful noise. My voice tends to go a bit flat at times but I don’t think God cares. My voice may fit more into the joyful noise category than singing.

I think that people who think you have to be in tune to sing in church may be singing to impress people, not God. God did not give all of us voices which are in tune or which even sound that great but He does want us to sing praises to Him.

This Sunday I was singing praises in a park with my church family, Freedom in Worship. We meet in a park because we can’t afford a building. God is started to bless us in that direction though. In this family we only have one member who plays a guitar and a young lady who beats on a drum but we sing out with so much joy and we get so into it it is just a total blast. I have come to love this family because they don’t care what you wear or how you sing, they only care if you come to worship.

For those people who think you have to be Celine Dion to sing in church I ask you, “Who are you trying to impress, people or God?”