Harmony

Harmony:

1)    Agreement; accord; harmonious relations

      2)    A consistent, orderly or pleasing arrangement of parts; congruity
 

3)    Music:

The simultaneous combination of tones, especially when blended into chords pleasing to the ear; chordal structure, relations and practical combination of chords.  *

During the offering at church yesterday, a trio from the Praise and Worship team sang a beautiful song unto the Lord.  The only accompaniment  behind them was an acoustical guitar, a keyboard and a tambourine.  What really set the group apart was their beautiful harmonies. The effect of the blending of their separate parts was spell-binding to me.  It made me feel as if I was standing before the very throne of God!  All I could do was raise my hands and worship God!

I guess I’ve always enjoyed listening to and breaking down the different harmonies when musical groups sing.  I’m sure that the biggest contributor to this activity is the influence of my talented wife.  As I may have mentioned before, she comes from a musical family.  Her Mom and sister were both strong soprano’s while her Dad sang with a deep bass voice.  When they sang together at their church, whether as a family unit or as members of the choir, Piper was usually given the alto parts.

Once she and I connected and started singing together, Piper would easily harmonize with me and we always blended well.  As our family grew she would help the kids to find their perspective parts in the songs and once again we always had multiple part harmonies.  We actually sang specials as a family at the various churches we attended over the years, at a Realtors luncheon, and a couple of times for dinners held by the local Farm Bureau!  (Don’t ask me how that came about…)

Both of our kids who graduated from the third year specialized music ministry training at Bible School strongly credited the relative ease in which they went through their various voice, piano, music theory and composition classes and exams with the training that their Mom had given them as they grew up at home. 

Anyway… while I enjoy modern contemporary Christian music with it electric guitar solos, strong lively tempos and solid bass lines, I still enjoy a good old southern Gospel Quartet where the four part harmony brings the power of God’s anointing and tears to one’s eyes as the singers build up to a climaxing crescendo that leaves the listener in awe!  It is hard to find something as beautiful as a group of individuals singing in wonderful agreement and/or harmony together.

This morning as I read from Colossians chapter one, I came to the conclusion that God would totally agree with me!  Verse 20 declares that “God was also pleased to bring everything on earth and in heaven back to himself through Christ.  He did this by making peace through Christ’s blood sacrificed on the cross.”  As usual, I had to look up some of the words from their original Greek meanings and discovered that the word translated “peace” actually means “to be a peacemaker; that is to harmonize.” (Strong’s)

It would seem that our heavenly Father’s desire for us is to be in perfect harmony with Him, and through Christ’s actions He provided a means to accomplish this!  As Christians we are now able to live in agreement, accord and with harmonious relations with Him and His ways.  We are to be a living song with a simultaneous combination of tones that when blended into chords is pleasing to His ears, to ours and to those that we come into contact with throughout our lives!

Dwell on that thought for a few moments here.  Is that the way that your life is progressing or is there harmonic discord in your life’s song?  My youngest daughter was sharing about one of their final composition projects they had in school.  The assignment was to make a personal arrangement of a known worship song and then lead their class in the singing of it.  The band which was made up of instructors played the song exactly as written whether it was right or wrong.  Any dischordal notes were played and thereby made obvious as they did not blend together and tended to take away from the anointing of the song.  The importance of harmony was driven home by the mistakes of a few in the class.

Are there any dischordal notes in your life today?  If the answer is yes, then maybe you’d better compare the notes on your music sheets to the original music written by the Master composer.  The notes do not necessarily need to be the same but they do need to blend in harmony with one another in order to fully flow in the blessings that He desires for us to have and to be in this life!

Think about all this the next time you listen to a beautiful piece of music.  Chose to play the music of your life in the same harmonious manner.  Have a great day!  Stay in tune to His Word and keep asking yourself… “What am I expecting today?”

 

* http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/harmony?s=t