| “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” |
| —Psalm 73:25-26 |
Many years ago, I attended a church where on a particular Sunday the Minister of Music and Worship announced the following:
“Today, we will be privileged to hear from Miss Blank, a professional musician.”
The next time the Church Board met, one of the prominent members of the Board declared, with a tinge of anger: “What? A ‘professional musician’? Scandalous! Why in our church we don’t believe in paying musicians. Only those who wish to volunteer are welcome to participate in our services!”
Over my 76 years of life, but more particularly in the last four decades or so, I’ve encountered this somewhat negative idea several times, particularly in Evangelical churches. The idea that a church might pay a double quartet of singers to form the foundation of a choir brings such a strident response that you might think someone had suggested viewing a pornographic film during the Worship Service.
I realize that some feel the hiring of professional musicians would discourage non-professionals from participating in a church choir, or even make the non-professional members of the choir feel somehow inadequate. Instead, in those places where professional musicians serve as a foundation for a choir’s performance in worship, or when professionals perform other music to the glory of God in worship services, a level of excellence begins to arise and sustain itself. I wholeheartedly believe that such excellence surely pleases God. The professionals encourage the non-professionals to become better musicians.
King David, no slouch as a musician himself, very wisely employed professional musicians from the tribe of Levi and paid them to write Psalms and perform music during worship. Churches should adopt the attitude: “Good enough for King David, good enough for us.” For example, Asaph was one of those professionals whom David hired. Notice the strength of the message contained in the following verses from one of Asaph’s Psalms, as recorded in Psalm 73:25-26:
Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Whenever some health issue or other difficulty comes into our lives, it is reasonable that we might be moved to consider what really counts in our lives. At such times, we might long to be like Asaph and acknowledge that “earth has nothing we desire besides you” O God. In moments of distress, even relatively minor ones, our hearts can soar when we realize that the love of God is the strength of our hearts and our portion forever.
Maybe you’re one who is fighting something far more deadly than a minor issue. Perhaps cancer has you in its insidious grip. Or, maybe heart disease assails you. Or, maybe some other deadly health issue has risen to smack you around.
Please be encouraged by the professional Psalmist, Asaph, this day. God is our portion. He is the strength of our hearts. No matter what we may face, we do not face it alone. He is with us every step of the way. He is now and ever will be our only desire.
Based on a blog originally posted on Tuesday, June 13, 2017
