If you went to a church growing up with traditional song books, you may have experienced the thrill of flipping to the page number of the hymn on the first try. The song books typically would have about a 1000 numbered songs, and at the beginning of each hymn there was a golden opportunity to get to the song number right when you flipped open the book. More often than not you missed, and then you would see if the number you flipped was higher or lower than the song you needed to be on. You would flip again getting closer and closer to the number, correcting each time until you were able to finally arrive at the right number all in the hopes that you would get there before the singing began. Once the song was over, you would undoubtedly get another chance to improve on your flipping when the next song came around.
My children now play this game at Church. At the ages of 4 and 7, they have moved on from the novelty of hymn number 100, and have started on their own journeys of flipping to the right hymn so that they can sing along. While they are generally good with numbers, they still need some guidance on which way to flip after their first three digit number is revealed. When they finally get to the number they need, there is a small moment of triumph before joining the often already started hymn.
It struck me that this is an apt analogy for the spiritual life. Our purpose is to give glory to God, by ‘singing’ to the tune of His will. Yet, it takes time to discern that will (find the song). There are so many paths (songs) to choose from that we can often get overwhelmed and not open the book at all. Or we can open on the first try, and get discouraged because we are so far off and are unsure of which way to go with our three digit numbers. Yet, just like my children to me, we need to rely on our heavenly Father to encourage us to keep going, make another flip, and repeat until we arrive at our destination. It is this journey that makes the triumph so much sweeter, especially when we are able to join in the beautiful tune sung by the rest of the congregation.
Continuing with the analogy, we will find that as we get older and become more experienced, our flipping back and forth will be less and less because we are beginning to understand the process and feel of the book more. The same goes with the spiritual life. As we get older (and we care to go deeper in the spiritual life), discernment will become more and more familiar to us. Thus our initial flip will be less far off, and it will most likely take less flips to get to our destination. Certainly there will be some songs where we start way off (as in the spiritual life) but those are few and far between when they would have been the norm when we first started out as kids.
Ultimately, what we need to learn from this analogy is that discernment and spiritual growth take time. We can get discouraged when we are energized for the Lord but are not immediately holy (like the young child excited to find the song but is in the 300s while trying to find #689). We can often fall victim to internal criticism if we do not understand God’s will immediately and become discouraged. But we must carry on and keep flipping as we get closer and closer to our goal of understanding His will for us. And once we arrive and ‘sing along’ to His will, we will get another opportunity to improve and apply the things we learned the next time we are invited to discern. We may do better, or we may even be worse, but the only time we fail is when we shut the book completely because we have stopped the search, or we have decided to sing our own tune. In every moment of every day, God is inviting us to enter into His glory by ‘singing along’ to His will. May we never grow tired of the journey!
