Country music is of the devil. It’s got too much cursin’ and leavin’ and lovin’. Too many pickup trucks, and not enough serious commitment.

Wrong.

Country music has a lot of songs that were written by angels. Unfallen angels. Look, for instance, at the music of Randy Travis. Randy first found #1 on the country music chart in 1986 with “On the Other Hand,” a song that my mama would have been proud for me to follow. Randy’s like that, choosin’ songs that preachers can use as sermon illustrations, songs that bring your values right out in public along with your tears.

Between 1986 and 1998 Randy had 21 #1 songs. Then came five years in the chart cellar. Randy had gotten religion, thrown away the wild life, and followed his wife Lil’s advice to sing about God. Those albums are some of my favorites, but the charts mostly ignored them. Till May of 2003.

Randy’s #1 song in 2003 was “Three Wooden Crosses,” a ballad that sneaks up on you and whispers,

“I guess it's not what you take when you leave this world behind you, it's what you leave behind you when you go.”

“If you can listen to this song without crying,” says one of my uncountry friends, “then your tear ducts are broke.”

“Listen to this song and the Holy Spirit’ll be whisperin’ conversion lyrics in your ear,” says another.

Randy Travis is not alone. Bushels of country music stars sing spiritual invitations in their songs. That’s because country music is about life where we live it — in the kitchen, in the bedroom, on the two-lane, in the moments when we and God get to make eyes at each other over life’s impossibilities.

Take the title song on Tim McGraw’s new album, "Live Like You Were Dyin'." It starts slowly, like a walk to the doc’s office to learn if your cancer is malignant. It is, and the song speeds up to match the anxiety of dealing with terminal news.

“Man whatcha do?”

“An' he said: 'I went sky diving, I went rocky mountain climbing,

I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu.

And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter,

And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying.’

An' he said: ‘Some day, I hope you get the chance,

To live like you were dyin’.”

The song has earned Tim McGraw his 18th #1. Even better, it made me sit down and re-sort my priorities. Now I’m doing “nuttin” when family calls. Noticing sunsets, whistling back at songbirds, speakin’ kinder words, laughing at kittens, reading the Good Book, forgivin’ myself … and maybe even listenin’ to some country music.

Dick Duerksen is the director of mission development for Florida Hospital in Orlando.