How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony!
To get through the Bible in a year, you’ll have to read at least three chapters a day. So when I saw that I was only assigned one Psalm, I was confused. Then I opened the Bible and saw that this one Psalm was only 3 verses. Now, that’s great for me personally, since I’d probably only make it that far anyway. But I would’ve thought there should be more to read.
Even more than that, these verses aligned perfectly with the prayers I’d been praying for our ministry teams at church that morning before opening my Bible. I’d been burdened for the unity of our worship team especially. Nothing happened to disrupt it, but I couldn’t shake the sense that we needed to eagerly protect it.
So sent a text to our worship leadership team’s group chat: “praying Psalm 133 over our team today.” That was it. One person liked the message. And we all went about our day.
For harmony is as precious as the anointing oil that was poured over Aaron’s head, that ran down his beard and onto the border of his robe.
Time for staff meeting at church, and my pastor says, “I’m going to go off script here and veer away from our book study. Something else is on my mind.” He proceeds to ask to weigh in on some things he is sensing that could be threats to our ministry. At the top of the list? Threats to our unity.
Ok, Lord. I’m listening.
We discussed all the ways that our unity can be threatened, and I got to thinking about the worship department specifically. The New Living Translation of Psalm 133 lends itself nicely to this comparison, as it uses the word “harmony” to imply “unity.”
Harmony is as refreshing as the dew from Mount Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion.
When I consider the musical implications of harmony, I think about the importance of one note. One voice. One pitch played or sung even the tiniest bit out of tune and the harmony is disturbed. That’s how important the one is. Furthermore, the longer a pitch is sustained, the more likely the singer is to drop the pitch ever so slightly.
So you see where I’m going with this?
One thing – one tiny little thing – can disturb the unity amongst our team.
One face made during a conversation.
One person being unwilling to have the right conversation with the right person in the right timing.
One side conversation that leads to one minute of gossip.
One person harboring something against another.
One text message.
One frustration that goes unexpressed.
The power of one.
And there the Lord has pronounced his blessing, even life everlasting.
And the longer we do this, the more likely we are to drop the pitch. The heavier the weight of ministry gets, the easier it is to stop pursuing the details and disciplines we did when we were first starting out.
For a singer, it’s breathing. We stop thinking about how we breathe and the pitch suffers. Which makes the rest of the chord out of tune.
Abandoning the disciplines that are foundational to our training is the quickest way to disrupt the harmony.
So then, sticking to those disciples becomes the best way to maintain harmony which is like oil dripping down Aaron’s beard. Anointed. Holy. Costly.
The good news here is that scripture gives us the very disciplines we need: prayer, fasting, believing the best about one another, being open about offenses when they occur and careful no to pick up offenses when we don’t have to.
The power of one.
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!