My father-in-law gave a talk today about music in the church and brought to mind something that I've been mulling over for the last few weeks.
He said something about how each week, during sacrament meeting, we all share our testimonies every time we sing one of the hymns. I loved that because it can be intimidating to actually get up and share a testimony, but simply being at church and participating in the meeting is a testimony being shared.
The thought that this idea brought back to mind is the concept of making a "joyful noise."
Psalms 100:1-2 says
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
When I think of the phrase "make a joyful noise", I think of people making jokes about how they're bad at singing, but can at least make a joyful noise.
And I've been thinking about how nice it would be if we applied the joyful noise principle to other areas of our worship.
When we work hard on a talk or a lesson, but then feel awkward when the time comes to give it and feel like we didn't hit everything that we wanted to in the way that we wanted to, that's us making a joyful noise.
When someone trips up during the Sacrament prayer and has to start over, that's them making a joyful noise.
When a parent is out in the hall, rocking and shushing their child, they are making a quiet, joyful noise.
These are all joyful noises because they are all examples of imperfect worship.
I remember a sacrament meeting when I was at BYU-Idaho where a young man sang a solo.
Badly.
I'm not trying to be rude here, but it was simply not good. And looking around, you could see that everyone was thinking the same thing. So I decided to look up the lyrics to the song that he was singing and read along was he sang. And even though I didn't get the same goose bumpy feeling of the Spirit that I often do during musical numbers, I instead felt the Spirit in a different way as I focused on the meaning of the words, rather than the beauty of the notes.
That young man was making a joyful noise. It might not have been the kind of noise that you hope to hear during a musical solo, but he did seem to be earnestly sharing his testimony. And because of that, the Spirit was still able to be there.
The Spirit can help people take what they need most out of a poorly executed talk or lesson.
Listening to the Sacrament prayer a second, and sometimes even third or fourth time, gives us the opportunity to hone in on the words in a way that we often don't because we've become so used to hearing them. (I actually shared an experience like this in a past post.)
That parent in the hallway may not be getting a whole awful lot out of Sacrament Meeting, but the fact that they are there anyway is a testament to their faith.
Each time we make an effort to follow God, we are making a joyful noise. It doesn't matter if our efforts feel small or messy right now. It matters that we're here and we're trying.
We don't have to be perfect disciples in order to make a difference. Our imperfect testimonies and efforts have always been all that was required.
We don't have to make a perfect noise, only a joyful one.
