Failed idol auditions

It’s Idol season again.

    I’ve watched nearly every season since it showed up 12 years ago.

It’s not that I am a big pop music fan. Most of the songs they sing on the show I have never even heard of, except when they do Elvis week, or music from the 50’s and 60’s that I heard growing up with my parents oldies stations. It’s really not about the music for me.

Let’s be honest. The reason my family loves to sit around the TV during this show is not about the great talent, or the music or even the drama from the judges. The real draw of this show is the auditions. The REALLY BAD auditions.

   If you have somehow lived in a bubble for the last 12 years and haven’t actually caught an episode of American Idol, it goes something like this. Tens of thousands of people from all over the country fill huge auditoriums and wait in day long lines to get their chance to have one minute to sing in front of a panel of judges. Each one believes with all their heart that they are the next music star, and many cross through obstacle after obstacle to have their chance to show the world their talent and win the million dollar contract.

But only one person gets to win.

    That leads to weeks and weeks of auditions to narrow the field and bring the best to Hollywood to pursue their dreams. And weeks and weeks of terrible auditions to choose the few talented enough to actually make it through. And that is our favorite part.

   Some of these make us laugh so hard our sides hurt. Person after person walks to the stage in ridiculous outfits with some of the worst singing we have ever heard and dance moves to match. And most of them have no idea how truly bad they are. They are simply shocked at the judges’ responses.

And that brings me to a question. Don’t they have anyone in their lives who was willing to be honest enough to spare them from this embarrassment? Why didn’t anyone ever tell them that maybe a career in music was simply not their calling? It seems a lot of tears could have been spared and a lot of energy could have been put into better things. Or worse, maybe someone did tell them and they didn’t listen? Maybe they decided to pursue their dreams in spite of the naysayers; which, I suppose is good IF you actually have the talent needed to make the dream happen… which of course, they don’t.

I wonder how many of us are auditioning for the judge in very much the same way.

   Maybe we don’t wear flashy costumes or try to move our feet to some catchy rhythm, but I wonder how many of us think we are really great at something but are really only deceiving ourselves.

   Maybe we are living our lives to hear our Ultimate Judge say, “Well done good and faithful servant”, only to Hear Him say that He never really knew us and that our walk was more of a bad audition than a life lived honestly.

What if we have convinced ourselves that we are sharing the Gospel ENOUGH, giving to the poor ENOUGH, moving in the fruits of the Spirit ENOUGH? What if we should have been walking out our salvation more to do better at living a life with all that God has for us instead of adding a bit more flash and trying to make ourselves look better for the Judge?

   What if others have tried to tell us that what they hear from us is different from what they see acted out in our lives? What if instead of getting defensive about being called a hypocrite we actually took steps to change our hearts and actually line up our words to our actions?

   So it comes down to this. Each of us will have to face our Judge one day, and it won’t be Randy or Simon making jokes about whether or not we measured up. There will only be one time to show Him that we have been faithful to all that He has asked us to do.

But will He find us faithful or will our lives be shown to be a mirage of the real thing?