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Keeping the Beat

by Jerry Ousley  
4/28/2007 / Christian Living

Keeping the Beat
By Jerry D. Ousley

When we were kids every year or two our family would take a few days vacation and visit my uncle and his family in Hamilton, Ohio. We loved going there because they always had the latest gadgets available. We admired them because it seemed they had everything: toys, electronic devices, and music.

At least one night during our visit my cousin would sit down at the piano, his brother would grab his base and my uncle would pick up his guitar and away they'd go. Man I longed to be playing with them and sometimes I would pick up an old coffee can or something and just beat the tar out of that thing. In those days I could only play a couple of chords on the guitar and I could only play them with a very long pause in between. The way they played there was no time for pauses. But I beat a "mean" coffee can.

I did eventually learn to play the guitar and even though I call it "thumping" it seems to work. I love music and both of our children have picked up on it (I love that too). When they were home it sounded good to hear our daughter practicing on the keyboard in her room or Jeremy brushing up for band on his trumpet. Passing something like that along is giving a heritage whose value cannot be consumed and never expires. It doesn't have to be music. It could be knowledge, athletic ability, tinkering with cars or just about anything that is legal and sane (even though what some might think is sane may be a little insane to others). It is actually imparting some of our own interest into our children. That is fulfilling.

It is important to stay in beat. Keeping in beat is playing the right chord at the right time with the right key and string stroke, or it could be tightening a bolt to just the right torque. It is doing what we are good at when it is supposed to be done.

In music there is nothing as sour as the sound of a wrong chord at the wrong time. It doesn't take a well-trained ear to wonder, "Where did that come from?" It is the same in life. In everything we do keeping the beat is important.

I remember an episode from the Andy Griffith show in which Barney Fife joined the choir. He had taken voice lessons and felt that he was God's answer to the town chorus. But when he sang he was completely out of harmony with all the rest and everyone knew it, everyone, that is, except for Barney. He'd just keep on singing thinking that he was the only one singing it right. It couldn't be him; he had taken lessons and considered himself an expert.

Often when life seems out of beat it is those who are out the most who seem to think everyone else is doing it incorrectly. We want to blame someone else because surely we who think we are trained can't be wrong. It isn't us but the rest of the world. That attitude has gotten a lot of people into mountains of trouble.

Psalm 150 tells us to "praise God." We are to do it in the sanctuary, in God's great expanse of sky and space, praising Him for His mighty acts according to His excellent greatness. We are to do it on all kinds of instruments. But it ends with this statement: "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!" It didn't say that only those with musical ability and talent were to praise the Lord but every living thing that draws breath. All of mankind and the entire animal kingdom sing together in a harmonious chorus of life bringing praise to the Almighty Creator! Wow! What a song!

In other words we are all supposed to keep the beat. We do that by doing the very best for God in whatever our talent may be. We give Him praise with what He has given us. If we are doing our very best then it can't be wrong if we are doing it to praise Him. So whether it's playing in a symphony, beating a coffee can, turning a wrench, flipping a burger, or pushing a button do it like you are doing it for God Because in reality you are.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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