Do--re--me?

I got in trouble in third grade. Our teacher had left the room and I took the opportunity to do something I’d been thinking about. Any guesses? I stood next to the desk of a girl I liked and I sang a song to her, a Neil Sedaka tune called “Alice in Wonderland.” The entire class overheard as I sang my little heart out for this girl who lived across the street from me. I suppose I thought that I would finish the song and she would sigh and say, “I like you, too.” We would walk home together and I would carry her books. We would someday marry and live in a castle.
Instead, she told the teacher what I had done and I was made to stand in the hallway for awhile, punished for singing. See, I’ve always had this problem—I can’t keep from singing. When I feel good, songs just pop out. I can usually control it when I’m in public, but music is such a natural part of me that I can’t deny it for long. Long after third grade, when I decided to propose to Lisa, I just had to do it musically. I wrote and recorded a song asking her to marry me and I convinced KLBJ-FM to play it at a certain time. I can’t keep from singing.
That’s why it’s always puzzled me that some people don’t sing in church. When I was a music director, I could always see them standing in the congregation, looking stoically ahead, just waiting for the hymn to be over. Perhaps such folks think that they’ll be graded on how they sound. But that’s not it. We are programmed to praise God, each given an instrument that requires no money, no lessons, no lengthy hours of practice. All God asks is that we play it. Like any proud parent, He is as happy with honks and squeaks as with the most virtuosic violin cadenza.
We’re playing in a big orchestra and we need your part…even if it’s soft and shaky, even if we never hear you. It’s not for us, anyway; it’s for the One who makes all the instruments. How can you keep from singing?