The Audience of One

Today I read an article by Bob Kauflin about Why We Sing as believers. In the article he quotes from a fictional book by Oregon's own Randy Alcorn called "In Light of Eternity," and it really moved me. Here is Kauflin's excerpt from Alcorn's book:

... The army began to sing, perhaps hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million.

I added my voice to theirs and sang the unchained praises of the King....As we sang to the gathered throngs of [heaven], the sheer power of their voices, our voices, nearly bowled me over....Our voices broke into thirty-two distinct parts, and instinctively I knew which of them I was made to sing. "We sing for joy at the work of your hands...we stand in awe of you." It felt indescribably wonderful to be lost in something so much greater than myself.

There was no audience, I thought for a moment, for audience and orchestra and choir all blended into one great symphony, one grand cantata of rhapsodic melodies and powerful sustaining harmonies.

No, wait, there was an audience. An audience so vast and all-encompassing that for a moment I'd been no more aware of it than a fish is aware of water.

I looked at the great throne, and upon it sat the King...the Audience of One.

When we completed our song, the one on the throne stood and raised his great arms and clapped his scarred hands together in thunderous applause, shaking ground and sky, jarring every corner of the cosmos. His applause went on and on, unstopping and unstoppable.

And in that moment I knew, with unwavering clarity, that the King's approval was all that mattered -- and ever would.