CREATED TO . . . SING!

We are a singing people because it is how God has created us. It’s what we do.

And when we do, we’re simply joining in with what the rest of creation is doing.

DESIGNED TO SING

We are all singers. We may not all be very good singers, but we are all created to be singers nonetheless.

The psalmist sings, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:13–14).

We have three young daughters, and it has surprised us with each of them how early they could sing. Simple melodies with mumbled words grew into phrases like “O sing happylujah,” or a bizarre mixture of “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” To sing is written into our human DNA; it is part of God’s design. Our desire to make musical instruments to accompany our singing is as old as our desire to fashion tools to aid us in our daily work (Gen. 4:21–22). Throughout Scripture and through history, we see God’s people using this gift of song to praise Him, the Giver of it.

David Additions: When you think about the human body we are built to communicate, we see that God speaks, we know that salvation comes from hearing, the tongue that God has given us is like a kindle setting a forest ablaze says James, It is a rutter that directs a ship, it reveals our heart, yet guides it also. We're designed to sing.

WHAT IF I “CAN’T SING”?

Sometimes we meet people who say, “I can’t sing”—as in, “The sound that comes out of my mouth when I try to sing is not what I was hoping for.”

But if you can speak, you can physically sing. The truth is that God designed you to sing and gave you everything you need to sing, as well as He wants you to. He’s far less concerned with your tunefulness than your integrity. Christian singing begins with the heart, not on the lips (Eph. 5:19).

Your heavenly Father cares whether and what you sing, but He does not mind how well you sing. While we may have choirs within our churches made up of voices who have expertise and ability, the congregation of a church is the ultimate choir, and it is without auditions—everyone can be in it and should be in it.

Practice.

It is worth adding, though, that the more we practice something, the better we become at it—and we seek to improve in what we truly value.

“we are all singers. Some of us have talents that allow us to sing with beautiful tones and good pitch, while others have talents to sing with their soul. What a beautiful sound we all make as singers to our heavenly Father’s ears.”

SINGING IN HIS IMAGE

Since God is a creator who enjoys beauty, it follows that we, as those creatures uniquely made in His image (Gen. 1:26–28), will do so too. What God made has beauty as well as functionality: “The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food” (Gen. 2:9, our italics).

We have been created to enjoy beauty and enjoy creativity. You don’t have to go to an art museum to understand this—but simply as far as the special occasion dinner date with your spouse, where you don’t want the food just to be passable but irresistible to the eyes and the palate; and you don’t just want a roof to keep the rain out, but a beautiful and meaningful place to make a memory of it.

We are designed to benefit from beauty in creativity.

It’s because God made us to be powerfully engaged in our senses and memories by music. Songs have the power to prompt a memory or transport us back to some other time and place.

We have also been made to like making things ourselves. J. R. R. Tolkien wrote that “we are not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.”3 We show our God-inspired creative spirit when we make music—not just in the songs themselves, but in the many different creative ways we arrange and express the songs together.

And as we create, we communicate—just as God does through His creation:

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. (Ps. 19:1–2)

And as we create, we communicate—just as God does through His creation:

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. (Ps. 19:1–2)

And as we create, we communicate—just as God does through His creation:

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. (Ps. 19:1–2)

SINGING WITH CREATION

Creation sings the Father’s song. When we sing as God’s people, it brings us into line with the whole of the rest of creation:

Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music; make music to the LORD with the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing, with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—shout for joy before the LORD, the King. Let the sea resound, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy; let them sing before the LORD, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity. (Ps. 98:4–9)

“What is the chief end of man?” asks the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The answer: “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” To praise Him is the original desire sewn into every fiber of our God-designed humanity and into every aspect of our God-designed world. When we sing God’s praise, we join with the tune of the cosmos. Just pause. Isn’t this incredible?

In C. S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, the great lion Aslan creates Narnia by singing it into existence. The character and timbre of the song are seen in the shapes and colors of all that springs up out of the nothingness. Lewis delights to point out that the song could not be separated from the Singer and that when your eyes saw the Singer He eclipsed everything else.

“God is the ultimate musician. His music transforms your life. The notes of redemption rearrange your heart and restore your life. His songs of forgiveness, grace, reconciliation, truth, hope, sovereignty, and love give you back your humanity and restore your identity.”

Our singing should sound like Him, look like Him, and lead our hearts to Him.

When the psalmist sings, “I lift my eyes up to the hills, where does my help come from?” (Ps. 121 NIV 1984), his help does not come from those hills, but from He who made the hills. We do not worship the created art of singing; we worship Him. Don’t sing primarily because you love singing, or keep quiet because you do not. Sing because you love who made you, and formed you, and enables you to sing:

We sing to Him, whose wisdom form’d the ear, our songs, let Him who gave us voices, hear; we joy in God, who is the Spring of mirth, who loves the harmony of Heav’n and Earth; p 11 our humble sonnets shall that praise rehearse, who is the music of the Universe. And whilst we sing, we consecrate our art, and offer up with ev’ry tongue a heart.(Nathaniel Ingelo, 1688)