Can You Hear the Background Music?
I heard something recently that just stopped me in my tracks. It grabbed my attention and pointed its finger at my heart. I wish I could show it to you, but I can’t. You do know that all the really valuable things in life are those which you cannot see.
Walking by the television these words leaped out at me, “It’s important to me how your feel.” Now when is the last time you heard those words spoken to you? Better still, when was the last time someone else’s feeling were important to you?
Granted we all get to feeling bruised and weak and worthless at times. There is just no harmony in us. Did I hear you say, “You are right, lady, all the melody in my life has leaked out and no one is aware of it? There is absolutely no music in me. No even a simple tune.”
I have found an answer in this dilemma and it has to do with John Wayne. One day I was not so much watching one of his old movies, but listening to it. That’s when I figured out it wasn’t the guns and horses and tough cowboys making it exciting. Nor was it the train chugging or the dynamite blowing. It was the background music moving up and down the scales, flashing back and forth from one scene to another.
At times, when the horses rumbled it was blaring and loud with the kettle drums building up the pace. During the night, when the rains fell, the background music was soft and gentle with a slight strumming touch. Never was it silent.
I have come to believe every day we act out the scenes of our lives to the background music of our hearts. If your feelings become important to me then I must hear the background music of my own heat first of all. What makes this melody in me, allowing me to be sensitive to your need of laughter and lightness to release the heavy pounding music of stress or sorrow in you?
It is when we come into His presence and abide in Him; when He becomes more and more at home in our hearts. There we can hear Him speak through the scripture and prayer. We learn to sing in His presence. This presence in our life reduces the timidity and tiredness that makes us want to stay in our own house humming our own tunes.
Simply put, when He is our guest, we have an ear for the strumming of each other’s soul. I think that is what preachers call discernment. That is when we come to discern the mind of God for others and for circumstances in our life and world. It’s when we pray, “You choose, Father, and I choose what you choose”.
Maybe we could pray this prayer today, “Father, make me to hear the background music of your presence in my life, so that together, we can walk into the disharmony and discord of another’s life and help them find a simple melody of love.”
In the early hours of the morning it seems as if the whole world is silent. Let me assure you, it is at this time, I best hear this melody of love when he says to me, “My child it is important to me how your feel.”
Could we find one of His children today and by our words or presence demonstrate to them that it is important to us how they feel? I assure you that will grab their attention just as the background music of that old John Wayne movie grabbed mine.
|
