Prayer in Music

Today is our Christmas music program at Taipei Adventist American School. Music is a gift from God to be utilized to glorify him and to praise him. To be called to be a musician in God's church is a high calling, even though it is not often seemed to be as such. However, the struggle to praise God with music is often always real.

I am not a musician myself, though I sometimes like to pretend I can sing. I admire those who are musicians and can play instruments, I think it is a beautiful talent.  It is a blessing that the kids here at TAAS can learn to play their music instruments well, and hopefully one day they will play only for the Lord. That is the ultimate purpose of the music program I believe.

But back to the struggle. Today going down the mountain, was a very huge accident. The mountain only has one lane going going down and one going up. So with a huge accident, traffic is completely backed up. Apparently a total of 3 accidents; 7 cars and 2 scooters, the cars being in the worse condition. I wonder why all of this has happened, today at this particular time? It will be a few hours before the buses actually reach Soochow University. The students were supposed to practice for tonight's program.

I like to look at things and this situation from the spiritual aspect. I wonder if many understand the spiritual situation that has happened. Of course, there is more to why this happened other than the music program. Think about how many lives are being affected right now jst from this accident; who has an important meeting to go to? Who is rushing against a life and death situation? Who is questioning their belief in God right now? So many where backed up on the mountain.

The Great Controversy is real. The battle between Heaven and Hell is real, and it all starts in the Garden of Eden. Many of us already know this story. But there is one very important scripture that speaks about The Great Controversy in a nutshell and it is often missed. Genesis 3:15 "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

In that one promise begins the controversy. Ever since then the devil has been devising plans to destroy Jesus, because he knows Jesus is the promised son that will one day crush his head. He also goes out of his way to hurt the children of Jesus, because in doing so he is also hurting our creator. When someone hurts your child how do you feel?

What does this have to do with the music program? The devil wants to win people over to his side. He doesn't want us to believe in Jesus. Music can touch people in a special way. Gospel music is powerful. Gospel music is like prayer. Why would the devil want a bunch of kids to sing music to God? Why would he want them to praise him? Why would he want them to "pray"?

The buses with the kids came maybe an hour late. We had until the afternoon to practice, and then we had to leave. In the end, God works everything out. The kids practiced and then they did very well at the concert. God is good all the time。