I sang this song today at church. I was not feeling it in any way. It was a last minute thing and for some reason, this song is always in my back pocket. I’ve tweaked the guitar part a great deal since I first sang it on Youtube a year or so ago. Anyway, today I wasn’t into it, but I didn’t make any mistakes, and everything went smoothly. I felt like I could have done way better. But what surprised me is that people still liked it. Several people came up to me afterwards to ask me what the name of it was, and say I did so well, and they enjoyed it, and so on and in my head while they were saying these things I’m like, really? what were you listening to? But I accepted their compliments with thank yous. My mother could tell that I wasn’t into singing today so I told her what happened and she said, “well they were listening to the words and meditating on Jesus.” Which of course made me think about how much I actually give up to God when I sing. My thoughts usually go something like this while I’m singing: Okay, steady, not too fast; your voice is shaking, stop it; am I going to hit this part softly, or with punch; you don’t have too much more to go; that was the wrong note; watch your fingers… I’m so focused on myself, which hinders me from being truly overtaken and having that transforming experience. Sometimes I have a great performance, I’m feeling the crowd, I’m feeling the music, and at the end I walk off like “yeah, that just happened.” But most of the time, I feel like I give a less than average rendering. I guess the only thing there really is for me to do is pray for guidance on song choice, guitar choice, and “set my mind on things above” (1). I’m so much more selfish than I’d realized.

1. Colossians 3:2