Hearing God’s Music
by Max Lucado
Let's imagine that you want to learn to dance. Being the rational, cerebral person you are, you go to a bookstore and buy a book on dancing. You take the book home and get to work.
Finally, you think you’ve got it, and you invite your wife to come in and watch. You hold the book open and follow the instructions step by step. You even read the words aloud so she’ll know that you’ve done your homework. “Lean with your right shoulder,” and so you lean. “Now step with your right foot,” and so you step. “Turn slowly to the left,” and so you do.
You continue to read, then dance, read, then dance, until the dance is completed. You plop exhausted on the couch, look at your wife, and proclaim, “I executed it perfectly.”
“You executed it, all right,” she sighs. “You killed it.”
“What?”
“You forgot the most important part. Where is the music?”
Music?
You never thought about music. You remembered the book. You learned the rules. You laid out the pattern. But you forgot the music.
“Do it again,” she says, putting in a CD. “This time don’t worry about the steps; just follow the music.”
She extends her hand and the music begins. The next thing you know, you are dancing—and you don’t even have the book.
We Christians are prone to follow the book while ignoring the music. We master the doctrine, outline the chapters, memorize the dispensations, debate the rules, and stiffly step down the dance floor of life with no music in our hearts. We measure each step, calibrate each turn, and flop into bed each night exhausted from another day of dancing by the book.
Dancing with no music is tough stuff.
“Let God have you, and let God love you—and don’t be surprised if your heart begins to hear music you’ve never heard and your feet learn to dance as never before.”
~ Max Lucado ~
From A Gentle Thunder: Hearing God Through the Storm
Copyright 1995, Max Lucado
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Max Lucado has touched millions with his signature storytelling writing style. Awards and accolades follow Max with each book he writes. Max is the first author to win the Gold Medallion Christian Book of the Year three times—1999 for Just Like Jesus, 1997 for In the Grip of Grace and 1995 for When God Whispers Your Name. In 2005, Reader’s Digest dubbed him “America’s Best Preacher.” In addition, he has been an ECPA Gold Medallion finalist with more titles than any other author in the industry.
Max serves as Senior Minister of the Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas. But he says his greatest accomplishment is finding a one-in-a-million wife in Denalyn and having three unbelievable daughters: Jenna, Andrea, and Sara.