Be a Showoff

Have you ever worked with a children’s choir? Some children enjoy getting up on the stage and singing. They are borderline showoffs, giving it all they have, wanting to please not just their parents but everyone.

Others have to be cajoled, pleaded with, and at times bribed to get them to sing. Perhaps they are unhappy at the moment, or tired, or not feeling well. Maybe they lack self-confidence. Or maybe they just don’t want to sing!

So many times, we are like the bribees. Looking down, shuffling our feet, hands in our pockets, having no desire to sing. So often our focus is not on Christ but on our circumstances. We are cast down, mulling about, unable to move forward. Our hands stop working, stop serving, and are shoved in our pockets. Praise has become an option—as if we first need God to bribe us with the answer to our prayer and the resolving of our problems.   

In Acts 16, we find Paul and Silas in prison praying and singing hymns to the LORD. They too had an audience—the other prisoners. But the audience they were singing for was an audience of One. The Lord Jesus Christ.

Regardless of our grief, heartache, or suffering—regardless of how we feel—our Father is in the audience. Let’s sing to please Him. Let’s be a showoff.