Beginnings

          My mother (and many other mothers) always told me that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. Even though I like breakfast food, I never really put that truth into practice, especially as I got older. When you have to be at school at 8:25am and you wake up at 8am, breakfast was not on the list of top ten things to do before going to school. This viewpoint has carried over into my college life as well. Try as I might, there are those days when I don’t get breakfast, for one reason or another.

            Why is breakfast the most important meal of the day? Nutritionists (and I) would say it’s because it’s the first meal of the day. It gets you started, so that all the gears start turning and working at their best at 7am instead of 10am, when your body suddenly realizes it has no food to keep it going, and so it takes from other bodily resources. Not eating breakfast doesn't only affect your morning life, either. Studies have shown that those who do not eat a healthy and substantial breakfast are more likely to binge eat or eat unhealthier later in the day. I have seen this as true in my own life.

            All this is to say that beginnings are important. What kind of breakfast you eat or don’t eat in the morning determines how you’ll eat and function for the rest of the day. The pace you set at the beginning of a run determines how successfully you will complete it. In singing, I have learned that the way you start a phrase is the most important part in determining how you will finish it.

            I would like to take time to expound upon the musical example of this phenomenon. For those of you who are not singers, I am about to get rather technical, so bear with me.

            There are two things that are important when beginning a phrase of music, and they are interconnected. One is the firming of the glottis, or the vocal cords. The second is the breath flow. One cannot work without each other. The breath must flow in order for the cords to come together, but if the chords are not firm enough then the breath will not be used efficiently. As a singer, you must do both of these things simultaneously at the exact moment that the phrase begins. You must also use your brain to determine the correct pitch and thus correct firmness of your vocal cords. Sound hard? Yes, well that’s why professional singers spend about ten years in training and don’t start their career until they’re thirty years old.

            Anyways, the exciting part is that if you do this at least semi-correctly (which I have begun to do personally at times in my training), you will have a freedom and flexibility that you have never possessed with your voice before. You don’t ever worry about running out of breath, and each pitch is spot on and resonating for all it’s worth. The thing is that our bodies know how to sing, but it is our brains and their foul misconceptions that mess us up. We just have to set ourselves on the right course with the right start, and our bodies will take care of the rest. Granted, this is not the only element to singing, but I believe it plays a very big part. How we approach and start a phrase is key to the rest of the phrase.

            Now we get to the really good stuff: how this all applies to our spiritual lives. Now, I use that phrase “spiritual lives” like it’s something separate; let me remind you that it most certainly is not. Everything is interconnected. Therefore, hopefully you have already made the spiritual connection to what I have just said, but in case you haven’t, let me make it for you.

            Christ is our Rock, our firm foundation. On him we must rest upon for everything. He is not something or someone that we come to only in times of trouble or times of happiness; rather, He is the bread we must feed upon daily. Just like breakfast, He is the most important and only meal that we should eat each and every day. Therefore, it is important that we spend time with Him at the beginning of every day. It gives us the right focus, energy, and motivation for the rest of our day. Just like leaning upon the vocal cords, we will experience such freedom and flexibility as never felt before. There is no substitute for Jesus Christ. For the vocal process to work there must be a leaning sensation. The breath must press against the cords. My voice teacher used to say that “Those who give up their breath for the sake of the phrase will find it, but those who hold onto their breath will lose it.” – essentially a witty restatement of Matthew 16:25. Singers must lean their breath fully upon their cords and trust that the cords will carry them where they need to go. Likewise, we must fully rest upon Christ and His work on the cross, although how much more reliable of a foundation is he?! How much more can we trust him with our lives, seeing that He has given His up in order to save us?

            Romans 5:6-8 says, “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

            Praise God that He is in control of our lives, and will carry us where we need to go, if we would only trust Him. May we be more trusting of the Lamb that was slain in our stead, and be faithful to hand over our lives to Him at the beginning of each and every day.