Loud Praise

Sometimes our faith needs to be practiced with a hush, and other times it needs to be proclaimed with a megaphone. This is the first post in a series that analyzes when we're called to be loud, and when we're called to be quiet. They'll be tagged "loud faith" and "quiet faith" so that you can find them easily. (See the bottom of the article for tags!)

On the 6-hour drive from my dorm room to my parents' house, I used to scream-sing Wicked, and upon arriving home, could barely greet my parents because, well, that note at the end of Defying Gravity wasn't going to scream itself and I'd taken a real good whack at it, on repeat. Six hours of this kind of behavior certainly takes a toll on your ability to talk, and I may or may not have gotten a speeding ticket as a result of my commitment to my role as every single cast member. I also attempted to paint my face green "just to see if I'd look as good as Idina” and, along with a few of my equally obsessed sorority sisters, died my hair black, which was definitely a mistake. 

My collegiate Elphaba obsession is not really the point here. The point is that even though scream-singing is strictly reserved for solo road trips, I’ve always been a naturally loud singer. I’ve been told to pipe down about a million times, and I’ve heard it enough that I learned to be embarrassed when someone could hear me (hence the glorious treasure of a long car ride with the soundtrack of my musical obsession du jour). During many church services, my insides have wrestled between desperately wanting to participate as fully as a full voice can, and desperately not wanting to bother anyone. It sends our souls into a dark place when we realize we’ve been annoying people. “Annoying” cuts deeper than a lot of other descriptors because it's dismissive, callus, demeaning of our worth, equating our humanity with a buzzing fly you can shoo away. So I spent a lot of years avoiding that descriptor, avoiding being a bother, avoiding being noticed.

But that’s anti-worship, isn’t it? To focus on the approval of those around me rather than the God before me? The God who says the very rocks would cry out if His disciples were silent?

“...the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’ And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out’” Luke 19:37-40.

Jesus shushed the shushers, and this makes me love him so much. This same man also rebuked his disciples for shooing away children. This teaches me something crucial: Jesus is not annoyed by what annoys the world. Loud singing and playing children have never warranted an eye roll from the Almighty. Instead, he welcomes them. Over and over again in the Psalms, we are told to “Shout!” “Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth! Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing with joy” Psalm 100:1.

There are many, many times when God calls me to be quiet, but I firmly believe that for me, times of corporate worship are not typically one of them. When the music starts at church, I remind myself to be brave, to yield myself to God and no one else, to savor the collective voices of His people and my ability to participate alongside them. Coincidentally, this is approximately one billion times more fun than being worried if the guy in front of me things I'm shrill.

So I do not sing quietly anymore, or at least I do not sing quietly to protect myself from the judgment of others. Now when I sing, most often God prompts me to be the loud girl He created, to let the joy and awe he's placed in my heart come out of my mouth with a volume that He surely didn't give me by mistake. See, it's all about motive—am I being quiet in order to serve God or to serve myself? For me, in this area, quietness is typically self-serving, typically an attempt to protect myself at the cost of authentic praise. I don't want to stand in church and have the opportunity to sing what I believe, to celebrate the love of my life, and instead choose hushed paranoia.

I am still told that I’m loud—more than once, musicians on stage have told me they can hear me when I sit on the front row. And my default is to be embarrassed my that. But now I counsel my red face to keep singing. This is not the time that God has called me to be quiet, and no rocks will be crying out in my stead.