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In Tune Or Out?
by Alan Seeger (Alan's bio)
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Rock legend Stephen Stills once said, “If you're not going to tune your instrument for your own sake, at least tune it for the sake of your audience.”
Most musical instruments — tambourines and claves excepted — need to be tuned on a regular basis. Violins, harps, even snare drums. Some instruments just need a small adjustment; trumpets, for example. A little tweak of the tuning slide. Guitars, of course, have 6 machine heads (or sometimes 12, or less commonly, 7 or some other unusual number), used to adjust the pitch of the different strings. Doesn't it just make you cringe when someone gets out their guitar and starts strumming away, oblivious to the fact that the instrument is badly in need of tuning? I can't begin to tell you how many times I've sat down in a little country church and played a C major chord on a beautiful old piano, only to hear something so twangy and out of tune that it sounds like it belongs in an old west saloon. Pianos are so difficult to tune that some people make a living doing nothing but that.
Tuning of musical instruments is important. This is especially true when you're talking about more than one instrument playing together. However, making sure that our hearts are in tune, both with the heart of God and with one another, is even more vital.
Like we talked about last time, it's a question of the attitude I have toward God, toward the task He has called me to, and toward my fellow man. Whoever you are, God has placed a call on your life. He has a particular role for you that involves doing something that will impact the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He doesn't think it's what you ought to do; He knows. He made you to fill that particular void in this universe.
But what do we do? So many times we pout because the situation He puts us in isn't what we think we ought to be doing. “...I don't want to be on the worship team, I want to be Joe (or Jane) Nobody and warm a pew.” “I don't want to be a backup vocalist, I want to sing lead.” “I don't want to teach 1st grade Sunday school, they're a rowdy bunch of brats.” “I don't want to be an usher, they have to wear ties every Sunday.” Well, guess what? Did you know that Jesus really didn't want to go to the cross? He wasn't real gung ho about the idea of being beaten within an inch of His life. Carrying a hundred pound beam of rough-hewn wood a distance of a mile or more on His bloody, raw back, in His weakened condition, didn't appeal to Him either. And when they tore off His clothes and shoved Him down on the ground, and the rocks cut into His back, and when they drove the spikes between the bones in His wrists into the wood of the crossbeam, and hoisted it up onto the upright of the cross, with his naked, bloody form dangling below, it wasn't the most enjoyable thing He had ever done. When they drove another nail through the feet that had walked the dusty roads of Galilee and Judea for three years, I feel sure He didn't smile. Contrary to Monty Python's Life Of Brian, people being crucified just don't break into song. But the same mouth that had asked His Father the night before to remove this cup of suffering if it were possible, didn't cry out and curse His tormentors, either. No, Jesus — Messiah — spoke yet again to His Father and said, “Abba — Daddy — forgive them, they're ignorant of what they are doing.” The Word says that “...for the joy that He knew was ahead, (He) endured the suffering of the cross, disregarding the shame of it...” (Hebrews 12:2) And when He calls us to service, we whine and say, “It's too hard.” Tune your heart! Make it true! Keep on tuning until every note, every chord, is perfectly attuned to the beating of the Father's heart. Then you'll be the blessing to others that He made you to be. Because after all, when your guitar is stringless and shattered, when nothing else lasts, when life itself is over, it's the heart of worship that will carry you through. Nothing else matters. Nothing at all.
“...I'm coming back to the heart of worship,
'Cause it's all about You,
It's all about You, Jesus.
I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it,
'Cause it's all about You,
It's all about You, Jesus...”
— “The Heart Of Worship,” Matt Redman
Copyright Alan Seeger. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission.
| About Alan Seeger: Alan Seeger is a worship leader and songwriter. At 16 he heard God's call to ministry through music and the Word -- and ran like a scared rabbit. At 21, Alan returned to God's service and now works full-time in the television and music ministries at Victory Family Worship Center in Springdale, Arkansas. Alan has composed a number of songs that are being used in churches across America, including "Pray (Until The Glory Of The Lord Comes Down)." Alan can be reached through Psalmist Creations Ministries at www.psalmist.net |
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