I’ve been listening to music online and a particularly beautiful duet of an English horn and bassoon working together effectively to create a mood with deep emotion brought to mind some powerful truths about humanity’s relationship to God.
We are all like an instrument, and each instrument has its unique sound and feel that it brings to the orchestra that no other instrument can bring. If I am a soulful oboe, I can’t also be a bright, triumphant trumpet, for to gain the brightness of the trumpet I must lose the soulfulness that makes the oboe unique. And to try to be something we’re not usually just muffles and diminishes our natural essence, rather than resulting in gaining qualities we didn’t previously have. When we play our part well with heart and wisdom and skill, we give the orchestra depth and soul and help it convey a specific message.
There are times when we’re playing the solo, other times when we’re supporting another instrument with beautiful harmonies that add layers to the message the other instrument can’t convey on its own. And there are even times when we are silent in life and cease to sing, and our silence is felt and conveys a message of its own. Such as times when we’re suffering from illness and removed from society. Or when someone announces they are getting married to someone of the same sex, and our silence while the rest of the people they know congratulate them, speaks louder than any words ever could, revealing God still has people in this world who take the Bible as their authority.
God is the conductor and he is looking for an answering chord in our hearts for the great love He poured out to us on Calvary. When someone gives such a great gift, their great happiness is found in watching how that gift changes your life, and hearing the sincere thank yous that flow from an appreciative heart. This is what every gift-giver longs and hopes for. God wants to be loved back for the love he poured out on us. He wants to see our lives line up with his, and our song pour out of our lips sincerely.
We want to be polished and skillful instruments in his hand. Instruments he can depend on, ready to play our part when he calls on us, and patient and wise not to jump in too soon or in a jarring way that will mar the piece.
We all know the experience of playing jarring notes and the shame that brings. We’ve all done it and we all do it throughout life, but there is an answer to this dilemma in Christ, who forgives us and then points us back to the piece and allows us to play again, despite our mistakes. Like music students life is a school and our love of music itself and of the pieces we’re playing motivates us to not give up even after we have played discordant notes. Truth, justice, mercy, and love are always worth pursuing even though we sin and falter.
Some ask, “Can’t God play his own song – Can’t he sing his own praise?” His relationship with us is much deeper and more intimate than a husband has with his wife. We are his witnesses. No; He can’t be his own witness. He can’t prove his own promises or show how his law blesses and elevates human beings. He needs living examples, as the Bible calls them “living epistles.” Especially now in this cosmic war that God finds Himself in with Satan accusing Him before the Universe, God needs people that testify by their changed lives That He is love.
He gave his moral law, and died to redeem us, and then we show in our lives to a greater or lesser degree depending on how much we put into it, the efficacy and truth of his just and right laws, which are a transcript of his own perfect nature, and the power and love of the Cross to transform a life. This is what it means to be a human being; this is the purpose that gives life satisfying, deep meaning. What we do for Him matters, when we stand for Him it matters to Him personally. He is our personal cause, his work is our work, and his glory our chief objective. To honor and live for the One who gave all for us, to say thank you for his sacrifice on the cross, is what we live for. And when we live for Him he honors and blesses us, not with material blessings but with things of eternal value. Eternal vindication and redemption from sin, eternal honor, a good name whose reputation doesn’t die out but goes on forever.
To have his approbation is infinitely more satisfying than having the approbation of an earthly mother or father. To hear the words “Well done thou good and faithful servant” is worth more than all the pain we go thru in this life, by an infinite amount.
No matter the pain we face in life, it’s all superficial wounds that can’t reach the heart, because we’re connected to Christ and at peace with God. Sure, Christians can suffer, and feel great mental and physical pain. We get mental illness, we die of cancer, just as other human beings do. We’re no less human because we know God. But these are flesh wounds only, not mortal wounds; the only mortal wound is sin and separation from God and He has taken that wound for us so that we never will experience it. Nothing takes away the deep peace, meaning, and happiness we experience by knowing God, and all the pain we go thru in life God uses for good to give us deeper revelations of Himself and to hew away more of the dross in our characters so that we reflect Him more closely.
At the end of life’s journey all the feelings of pain will be gone, and all that will be left are the precious memories of walking with God, thru the storms, and thru the daylight. And the character that is like his that he has recreated in our hearts.
What’s the only thing more beautiful than a moving piece of music? Moral beauty which is deep and meaningful, not simply emotionally touching or stirring, though it is those things too. A life lived with sacrificial love. Acts of kindness and truth. But God is love and love comes from God. We don’t generate it on our own. Our lives are our song and He is the Author of our heart’s song. And this is what human beings can be thru Christ, and were created to be.
It is my prayer that God molds me into that kind of person and I hope you desire it too and pray and seek for it. Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be filled. I hear what I am to Him and what He is to me, and what I can be and what He’s calling me to be, when I listen to music. It is a metaphor of deeper things.