Frog Fest

Dennis and I like to play "Do you know this one?", especially on Sundays when we are uber-focused on praise. It's kinda fun.

The game goes like this. Since I attended Spanish services most of my life, most of the choruses and hymns I know are in Spanish, while Dennis has a steel-trap mind for English renditions. I'll sing a line or two of a song in Spanish and he tells me if he knows the English counterpart. Then he'll sing something in English and I'll tell him if I know it in Spanish. Sometimes I get a little down because he knows way more English songs than I know Spanish, but it's all worth it when we hit one we both know. Then it's like an explosion of fireworks, a glorious rush of unalloyed joy. It's just plain fun to sing together—him in English, me in Spanish—and sometimes both in English.

That's exactly what we were doing on our way to church Sunday when Dennis said with a wry smile, "It's a good thing the Bible says to sing to the Lord with a joyful noise!" That would be Psalm100 and Psalm 98, to be exact. As painful as it is to admit, he's so right. While we enjoy singing, and have even led worship at different times in our lives, we know that we won't have American Idol or America's Got Talent knocking on our door. And that's okay. We're not out to make a name for ourselves. We're out to worship. We might be croaking frogs, but we're happy croaking frogs! And that's what God is looking for, not children with snappy vocal chords, but children who love to lift Him up, however that may be.

The word "sing" appears in the Bible hundreds of times, appearing in both the Old and the New Testaments. As well as admonitions to sing, there are many examples of God's creation singing to Him. The cherubim and all the heavenly host around God's throne sing "Holy, Holy, Holy" to the Lord (Revelation 4:8, one verse of many). Stories abound in the Bible of God's children singing to Him here on earth, in celebration or singing as a predecessor to powerful moves of God. The Israelites sang with joy after the defeat of Pharaoh and his army (Exodus 15:1-18). The Jewish king who was a man after God's own heart (that would be David) instituted musicians and singers for the temple (1 Chronicles 15:16; 23:5). In 2 Chronicles 20, God gave His people a seemingly crazy directive: they were to send the Levites to sing out in front of the army. But God's Worship First Plan was divine. As they did so, the Lord caused the armies who had come against them to fight each other. Then there was victory and plunder galore for God's people. In 2 Kings 3:15, the prophet Elisha called for a musician to play in order to usher in the presence of God so he could prophesy. Paul and Silas had their shackles fall off and were privileged to lead their jailer to the Lord when they lifted up their voices in praise in the dark of night (Acts 16:25-34). And the night when He allowed Himself to be taken in order to lay down His life for us, the night that began the painful but glorious culmination of His ministry on earth, Jesus sang hymns with His disciples (Matthew 26:30, Mark 14:26).

No bones about it, singing is an important part of our worship, of our walk with God. It exalts Him and, in His turn, He reaches down from Heaven and touches us with His presence and His power. Of Zion, the seat of God's presence on earth, the Psalmist writes, "As well the singers as the players on instruments shall be there: all my springs are in thee" (Psalm 87:7). We might not always feel like it—Paul and Silas must have felt pretty bummed in the jail dungeon—but they worshiped anyway. Singing to Him is where we'll always find the presence of God.

So don't be shy! Join the Frog Fest! Lift your voice to God and start enjoying a little bit of Heaven here on earth!

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in our hears to the Lord" (Colossians 3:16)

"Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing" (Psalm 100:1-2).

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