All We Need Is Music

I read an article recently which said there are two kinds of American Idol fans – the kind that gets a real kick out of the initial auditions with all the really bad singers and the kind who want to just skip ahead to when the real talent competes to be part of the final 12. Put me in the second category. I get embarrassed for the off-key wannabees.

Watching these initial auditions, there is no way anyone can convince me our population has a self-esteem problem – unless it is the problem of TOO MUCH self esteem. A long line of no-talent, self-deceived individuals march in and out of the audition hall. After the first few ear-jarring notes, you tell yourself this has to be a joke. There’s no way this person actually believes they are talented. Then...you see it in their eyes. The shock and disbelief when they are told, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Honest assessments are out of style in today’s PC/I’m-Okay-You’re-Okay world. Thus the American Idol gag reel. Some of these people can’t sing. I’m not sure some of them could even make a joyful noise! Telling the no-talents that they are just that, not talented, is being cruel to be kind. It is doing what the person’s friends and family members should have done, saying, “Honey, singing is not your gift.”

I’m a klutz. I was picked last (or close to it) for softball in elementary school – my psyche wasn’t irreparably damaged. It served as a process of elimination. Okay, athletics is not my thing, so I went about finding what was! I believe we all have been given gifts – abilities that are uniquely our own, however, Scripture says we all haven’t been given the same gifts:

For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.
(Romans 12:4-8)

Wondering what I discovered were my gifts? Let’s just say you would never see me on American Idol!