The Music Still in the Car

For the singer sitting in a parked car with the engine off and the rehearsal already started.

Suppose a woman parks outside a small hall at ten past seven, having meant to arrive at seven, and does not get out.

The light from the open door lies across the gravel in a long yellow shape. Four cars are already there and she knows three of them. She can hear a keyboard being set up, somebody laughing, the ordinary noise of eight people who are glad to be there.

She has the folder on the passenger seat. She learned the parts a fortnight ago and she knows them properly, not approximately. She's a better singer than two of the people already inside, and she is aware of this, and it changes nothing at all about whether her hand goes to the door handle.

Keeping it inside the car is not privacy and it is not preference, it is fear of being heard by anybody who knows you, and fear is what this answers. Scripture says to be strong and of good courage because the Lord is with you wherever you go, and the Holy Spirit is not impatient with a woman sitting in a car park.

Naming What She Is Waiting For

Be exact, because a fear described wrongly does not move.

She isn't waiting to feel ready. She has waited for that before and it doesn't arrive. She isn't waiting to be sure of the parts, because she's sure of the parts.

What she's waiting for is her voice to stop shaking. That's the actual condition. Somewhere along the way she decided that walking in while her chest is tight would be a kind of lie, and that she should only take a part when she can take it steadily.

You are not waiting for readiness, you are waiting for a symptom to stop. The written Word says be strong, be of good courage, do not be dismayed, because the Lord your God is with you wherever you go, while the Holy Spirit works in a chest that is tight in a car park.

That condition is worth looking at hard, because it cannot be met. A shaking voice steadies by being used, in a room, badly at first. Waiting for it to steady in a parked car is waiting for an effect to arrive before its cause.

What the Car Park Is Buying

Give the car its due, because sitting in it purchases something real.

Out here, nothing shakes in front of anybody. The parts stay perfectly learned, the voice stays exactly as good as she knows it is, and eight people continue to hold whatever opinion of her they already hold. That is a genuine peace and it lasts precisely as long as the engine stays off.

Here's the other column. The alto line is thin tonight and she can hear it through an open door. There's a woman in there covering two parts and getting tired. The one thing that would help is sitting in a car forty feet away with a folder on the passenger seat.

You have a real peace out here, and you are buying it from the people inside. Scripture ties courage to God's presence rather than to a steady voice, and the Holy Spirit goes into a room ahead of a frightened person rather than waiting outside with her.

Nothing here demands a solo, an audition, or a woman who enjoys this. A door, a chair, and a line she already knows.

The Condition She Set Herself

It's worth going back to that condition once more, because it is the whole mechanism and it was set by her rather than by anybody in the hall.

Nobody in that building requires a steady voice at the door. Half of them arrive rattled from a day they haven't finished thinking about. The keyboard player has a cold. The woman covering two parts is covering them because somebody's car wouldn't start, and none of that is anybody's disqualification.

The condition is hers alone, and she has been holding herself to a standard that would empty the room if it were applied to everybody in it.

You have been enforcing a rule on yourself that nobody enforces on anybody else. The written Word calls for courage on the basis of God's presence rather than a person's composure, and the Holy Spirit does not hold a frightened woman to a stricter standard than He holds the eight inside.

What a Shaking Voice Would Actually Cost

Count it honestly, because the fear has never been asked to show its arithmetic.

If she walks in at quarter past seven and her voice shakes for the first three minutes, here's the realistic spread. Nobody notices, because a keyboard is being set up and eight people are talking. Somebody notices and thinks nothing, because everyone's voice shakes at the start of a cold rehearsal. Somebody notices and is glad she came, which is what people are mostly thinking when somebody arrives late.

There's a fourth. It steadies by the second run through, which is what happens to every voice in every rehearsal room there has ever been.

You are arriving, and a shaking voice is a symptom of arriving rather than evidence against a singer. The written Word ties courage to God being with you wherever you go, and the Holy Spirit keeps your worth where God set it rather than where a first cold note puts it.

Stories in these messages are illustrations unless marked as testimony.

Written by Santiago This message is free. Nothing here is locked, nothing is for sale, and nothing is being asked of you.