All of us play a musical instrument! What?!? You might be saying that you have absolutely no musical talent and you couldn’t tell the difference between a bass drum and an alto sax. But all of us who have the breath of life in us were created by God to “play” a special kind of “music” that points our being to Him. Like any stringed instrument, in order to play that music, we need to be in tune.
Hang on… this strained analogy will make sense by the time you reach the end of this post….
Consider the following verse from the Hebrew songbook (which we call The Psalms)….
I read a devotional last week that talked about musical instruments and how their strings were attached to specific instruments. So now I’m thinking, ok so the obvious ones have strings, guitar, violin. But so does a piano.
Stretching the Strings…
The pitch of the strings on these instruments is adjusted by stretching or relaxing them to the right tension.
Now if you think about the strings, maybe they get out of tune when the instrument is not played, or temperatures may affect the tune. But all these strings get stretched in one way or another. As a musician, I know if my instrument is not tuned, it will not blend into the song we are playing.
We are like those guitar strings. God is always stretching us to be more like Him. We go through challenging situations and different trials. We have to keep looking to Him and have that strong faith that His plan is the best, even if we don’t understand it. And if we don’t pay attention, we will definitely be out of tune with the Lord.
Energizing the Strings…
When a guitar string is out of tune, it’s often weak and loose. It’s flat and it has no “spring” to it that will cause it to vibrate at the right pitch.
So let’s look at Psalm 33:3. “Sing to him a new song, Play skillfully and shout for joy.”
Maybe you’re saying,
“I don’t play an instrument so now what?” What’s this got to do with me???
This scripture is just encouraging us to look at worship with a new and fresh mindset. Like the strings of an instrument, build up that enthusiasm, whether you’re shouting for joy out loud or shouting for joy in your heart. For me everything is out loud. But everyone is different. God knows your heart.
We need fresh energy and need to tune into what God is revealing to us. We need to have that excitement that flows from our heart to show God that we love Him so much and we will be faithful to Him.
Keep Listening and Keep Tuning…
We need to reset our minds and tune up our thoughts, every single morning, and we have to tune our souls, to be on that perfect
pitch before we start our day. Our circumstances can be a little FLAT as we go throughout the day or our circumstances can be SHARP as a tack. Keep tuning your ear to and listen to what the Holy Spirit is telling you the rest of the day.
Just like when you’re playing a song on the guitar, and all in a sudden as you’re playing, your guitar goes out of tune. What happened? That string just slipped a little bit. But what do you do? You just stop for a minute and tune it back up. Just like when we try our hardest to follow God, but sometimes we slip a little bit. So right then and there we stop, refocus and get back on track to be back in perfect pitch with Jesus.
Broken Strings Can Be Restored!
Just like the guitar strings, one string might break or even wear thin. Just like us, we might break or even wear thin, just from living life. But remember that Jesus is ALWAYS with you and will give you the endurance and strength that you need. As you look to Jesus through prayer and scripture, you’ll begin to feel the tug of the Holy Spirit on your heart-strings.
God may not have graced you with much musical talent, but He loves you and wants to empower you to love Him back. Even if you’re tone deaf, God will enable you to sing His praise!
AMEN? AMEN.
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