Musical Chairs

Where you sit matters.

When  I walked in the door for some of my first childhood concerts, I picked my seat carefully with one objective in mind: the best view of the violin section.  Somehow, though, I still knew that no seat in that auditorium was the best seat, for you couldn't physically feel the music from that vantage point.  Since I surely never dreamed I had a chance of sitting up on stage with the music-makers, though, I was satisfied with my spot in the audience.  

Now I play in concerts several times a year, and a few weeks ago when the lights were dimming and the hush was falling, I realized with the crescendo of the drum roll that I have the best seat in the house!  Joining me in that position are nearly fifty musicians, our conductor, and one very special person each concert who gets to sit in our "Merry Chair."  With sponsorship, an audience member is ushered on stage to sit in this specially placed chair in the midst of the symphony, and my ten year old self is intensely jealous!

For believe me, there is a mammoth difference between staring down the bell of the trumpet as it bellows at you versus living amongst the music while it swirls around you.  And the leap from sitting amongst the music to being a music-maker is even more indescribable!  My violin vibrates with the ring of the cymbal crash behind me, white rosin dust puffs in clouds at our first bow strokes, and fifty people are swaying as one.   Nowhere else do I get the same pull of tension and delight that comes from creating and enjoying at the same time.  

So where are you sitting in the symphony God conducts?

Are you in the audience?  Appreciating God's mighty master hand as He works in the lives of others in the world?  Looking to the "professionals"--the missionaries, pastors, and leaders--to make great music, and being comfortable in your position of observer. 

Or maybe you're in the Merry Chair.  You're rubbing elbows with those through whom God is working.  You even look like you could be making music.  You're in the midst of the music-makers, but there is one key difference between you and them: you're not being led by the Conductor. 

So why not be a music-maker?  Don't just casually observe what God is doing, and don't just look like a music-maker to satisfy other's expectations.  Own the instrument God has given you.  Tune it well and play under the Master Conductor!  Be led by Him, and Him alone, through all the time changes and key changes and grand pauses that could trip you up.  He knows what happens after that page turn better than anyone. 

And while I still stand by the statement that where you sit matters, know that once you're a music-maker, it doesn't really matter anymore.  Whether you are the soloist or the violinist nearly hidden by the stage curtain, as long as the music you make is led by the Conductor, it is important, and it is beautiful. 

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“Abandoned cinema 1962,” © 2010 phill.d, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/.

Before You Travel to Another World

From the time I learned to read at age four, I have devoured any book I could hold onto for a day.  My parents didn’t ever have to take me to Disneyland as a child—the library was just across town and an evening there held far more attraction for me than an amusement park!

I remember several such library outings in which I would discover a new book and eagerly take it to my dad before I checked it out, hurrying in my typical library-fast-trot.

“Do you know if it’s good, Lauren?” he would invariably ask. 

When I would respond that I didn’t really know, he would hand it back and say, “Read the first page, a middle page, and a back page to test it out.”  If it passed this test, then I could check it out and take it home. 

The test wasn’t perfect: sometimes it failed and I would have to return a book before I finished it.  Sometimes the test revealed plot twists to me that I wish I hadn’t seen before reading the beginning of the book.  But sometimes the tested pages posed problems that put my heart in a head-on collision of discernment versus desire and taught me lifelong lessons as a result.  On those library visits I learned to look both ways before entering the world of a book to make sure it’s a world worth entering. 

Now I find myself faced with many worlds.

Books, movies, music, blogs, and internet all hold doors to worlds that clamor for my time, attention, and love.  And while that childhood test still applies, it sometimes seems too simple.  It is not the test, however, that has become simplistic, but my heart that has become complicated.  Recently I have realized that the deeper question beyond the childhood test has become, “What world do I desire?” 

I can scan book pages and read movie reviews until my eyes cross, but if that childlike innocence is gone and I am looking not for a “Caution Before Proceeding” sign, but for anything to justify my desire to enter that new world, then all my tests and questions are for naught.  Passports and visas protect the citizens of our country by keeping the wrong people out and enabling citizens with the freedom to travel.  Standards and discernment in media work similarly, but only if you want protection. 

A tiny girl was telling me the other day about a movie she had just watched with a bad part in it.

“I looked away,” she told me solemnly.  “But my brothers didn’t.  They watched.” 

My heart was pricked by this innocent little girl who knew when to look away and when to blush.  Her brothers had once known that as well, but somewhere along the way their desire had overruled their cautions. 

James truly said, “But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” {James 1:14-15}

What world calls to you from the enticing pages of a book or the glittering screen of your laptop?

Is there a part of your heart left unprotected?

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“Your Imagination Can Take You Anywhere,” © 2013 martinak15, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Recital Tragedy

The room was closing in on me as if I were suffocating under a heavy woolen cloak.  My shaky legs wobbled to the front of the room and I heard the applause as though it were from a distant mountain top.  I sank onto the bench, willing my choked lungs to work, willing my heart to stop overworking, and willing the worked-up trembling spasms in my legs to disappear. 

I wasn’t appearing in the Roman Colosseum facing a flesh-hungry wild beast.  But at that moment I was facing something that felt just as impossible: my piano recital. 

I was playing Debussy’s Reverie.  Trying not to think about how easy it would be to tangle myself in the web of left hand arpeggios, I lifted my clammy fingers to the keys.  The beginning notes slid into the air with ease, and I relaxed into the cushioned bench just a bit.  The measures began floating by, shaping whispering castles in the air that vanished into the clouds of melody like scenery passing into the distance 

Suddenly, a raucous note shattered everything: the castle in the air abruptly crumbled, my fingers were lost, and panic squeezed my heart.  The silence felt a mile long as one part of my brain grappled with that ridiculous next note that eluded me while the other part warded off the image of the audience suddenly on the edge of their seats, enjoying my suspense. 

Finally, my fingers fell woodenly into a passage a few lines before, and I grasped it like a drowning girl clutching driftwood.  But it was only temporary relief, for the earlier chasm approached.  I closed my eyes and ran with it.  When I opened my eyes again and breathed, I had leaped the chasm, skipping the problem section that I couldn’t remember as well as the whole page of music surrounding it, and I stumbled to the finish line.

I was devastated and mortified.  Several friends had been there to witness the debacle, and I could barely stand the agony of embarassment.  Whenever I thought about my performance I grew hot with shame, and all my teacher’s stories of his worst-nightmare performances did little to salve the burn.  The only way I felt any better was by tossing the memory into the recesses of my brain and burying it. 

I had all but forgotten about that recital, the ignominy fading with time.  Then, only a few months ago, I felt that same feeling all over again, and the memory was unburied.  This time, however, the shame didn't stem from a memory flub at a recital, but from a moment when I inadvertently let out someone else’s secret.  It was a big, life-changing secret, and it slipped out both because I hadn’t at first known it was a secret and because I had forgotten that someone else was in the room.  You can only imagine the silence following the premature revelation. I felt that same familiar shame and that same mortification.

Those whose secret I had slipped extended grace to me, but it wasn’t until I was lying in bed that night that I realized that what stung the most was that I had hurt them and needed their forgiveness and love to cover my mistake.  I had messed up royally, and, just like the piano recital of years ago, the only way to carry on was to accept that they loved me enough to carry on. 

It was then that I realized one of the most important lessons of my life.
I could extend grace to others.

I could stand tall and say, “I forgive you.”

But after making an unforgivable mistake, kneeling in humility, forgiven, and letting go of my shame and guilt could seem unthinkable.  On the other hand, chastising myself with my own mortification seemed perfect penance.  I had the Gospel all twisted up. 

In the words of my grandfather, spoken to me when I was fourteen and wrestling with the same burden of guilt: “Lauren, there was only ever one perfect Man, and they killed Him."

While I thought I was setting a high standard, I had subtly been seeking what Lucifer had sought.  I had inadvertently turned into Eve, faced with the tantalizing opportunity to be like God and falling prey to being like Satan.   

My pride shattered then, not under the weight of unforgivable guilt like Javert from Les Miserables, but under the weight of God’s grace and mercy.  I was stripped like Adam and Eve, holding out my arms to receive the fruit of sacrifice, the animal-skin covering of grace.  

Grace.  I never understood just how big a word it is until now, when I realize how tiny my mistakes are in comparison to its covering.

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“Day 37-Playing piano,” © 2009 Vladimir Agafonkin, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/.

The Media Wants YOU

The most important thing you should know about the secular media is that they want you.  They have agenda and mission.  They have an ax to grind and the greatest of grinders with which to accomplish it.  They have elite creativity, unlimited researchers, and exhaustive number-crunchers dedicated to our personal cravings.  Moreover, all these armaments the creators of books, movies, music, and websites pool to purchase one thing: you. 

Michael Landon Jr. said, “Unfortunately, with the [movie] studios and the gatekeepers, there’s no restraint. Their target audience is our children. So even if you look at the demographics of people who go to see movies at theaters it’s very young, it’s teens that’s the main marketplace. On television, they’re also the main target audience because the people that are buying product time are no longer interested in the actual buyers, the consumers of the product, their attention is now on future customers….I actually think that [Hollywood is] targeting our children, who by a certain inherent nature want to see these things. See, you put sexualized material in front of the teenager and it’s very difficult for them at that age to not want to look. You put graphic violence in front of them and it’s hard for them not to get involved.[i]”

This is not about putting eight claws and a fire-breathing mouth on the Big Bad Media.  I watch movies, read books, listen to music, and use the internet.  Sometimes wisely, but often foolishly.  I’m confident you realize the capability of the media for both good and bad.  Likewise, you should also understand mainstream media’s agenda, while not using them as a scapegoat for all society’s problems. 

So let’s go beyond the convenient scapegoat.  If the media’s target is you, then why not start with you?

1. Is your heart craving what the media provides?

Mine does.  All too often.  The storyline just sounds too sweet to be missed, and if the main character is blatantly living in sin, well, I can just fast forward most of those parts.  But the story is alluring, the soundtrack bewitching, and the actors enthralling.  So I take the heaping dish of glamor with the side of sin to live vicariously through the movie for 90 minutes and satisfy cravings like:

•  Needing someone to appreciate me 
• Desiring to be loved 
• Pushing aside stressful, pressing issues 
• Wanting success 
• Yearning for glamorous opportunities

2. How are you satiating those cravings?

If you turn on the television or crack open that book or stalk that website with those cravings urging, they will only be worse when the television turns off or the book ends or the website stalls.  I have wasted many hours on useless specimens of these media, and walked away afterward disgusted with myself at the waste and determined to do better in the future.  But if the cravings are not filled, they will continue to eat away at you until a gaping cavity appears. 

3. Will you allow yourself to be purchased?

If you are a Christian, you are already bought with a price.  There are many who would like nothing better than to buy your soul with their entertainment.  And you should know that “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.” {2 Peter 2:19}  Do you really want to be a slave of the latest rising star or Hollywood executive or author who pushes Christ to the gutter and themselves to the heavens?  If you are overcome by a media addiction, that is what will happen!

Do you know that using the media to fulfill desires meant to be filled only by God is like using a piece of scotch tape on a shattered dam?   

• Only He provides your worth.
• Only  He unconditionally loves. 
• Only He gives grace to keep your head above water. 
• Only He defines success. 
• Only He chooses your situation for His perfect, wise purposes. 

The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in imperfect, sinful you because Christ who fulfilled the law lives in you.  I wish I could copy and paste the entire book of Colossians here, and specifically chapter two!  If you don’t have time to read it right now, suffice it to say: you are complete in Christ (2:10)  If you died with Him, you were buried with Him, raised from the dead with Christ, and are made alive with Him.  (2:11-13) 

This is why I am not a slave to the media or anyone else.  I am not up for purchase—I are sold out and all in, because Christ lives in this body. 

If you skimmed all of that, read this: “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.  Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.  For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” {Colossians 3:1-3}

Yes—cravings, Hollywood, whitewashed sin, and slave owners will exist, as long as this fleshly body does.

But yes, yes, yes—the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, God the Father, freedom, and grace endure, beyond infinity. 

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[i] http://www.faithtalks.com/posts/michael-landon-jr/
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Photo Credit: Stuart Richards

Pastor in Dreadlocks

Photo Credit

“Mom, who’s Pilate?” “He’s the big shot.  Be quiet”

“I can’t see!”

“What do those words on the screen say?”

“Oh…oh…I am thirsty.  I am really thirsty!”

I was at an Easter play, trying desperately to get “in the mood”, but with the running commentary going on behind me, I might as well have been in Costco watching The Passion of the Christ on their big screen TV displays while people around me munched Polish sausages. 

I was getting fed up. 

This mom was obviously not in control of her kid, and he was being such a distraction—I seriously contemplated turning around with a hissed, “Shh!”  And I almost did it, too, but something or Someone held me back, and I decided simply to put up with the bother.  But as the play unfolded, I couldn’t help but realize that the little boy’s inquisitive questions were growing more and more pointed. 

“Hey, did you notice that one of the crosses is bigger than the others?  Why is that?”

“What—they can’t kill Jesus!  He’s God!”

“What does that sign on Jesus’ cross say?” 

Before I knew it, it was intermission, and a man strode across the stage, microphone in hand.  I did a double take when I saw him, but had to do a triple take when he introduced himself, “I’m the new lead pastor here at this church,” said the man with dreadlocks. 

Dreadlocks! I thought.  On a pastor?  Never mind that they were the tidiest dreadlocks I had ever seen, pulled back tightly against his head, or that dreadlocks aren't exactly a salvation issue—I was horrified!  And in that moment I was not on the side of the Jesus I had been worshipping just moments ago.  I was on the side of the Pharisees whose addiction to their own self-righteousness drove nails through the hands of the Son of God.  I was steeped in self-righteousness and dripping judgment. 

And then the Holy Spirit said, But this pastor with dreadlocks looks no different than that handsome man with the flowing curly hair whom you just saw playing Jesus!

Truth flooded my heart and washed the self-righteousness away.  I was humbled at the thought of my own hypocrisy, but God was not quite done yet. 

At the very end of the play, an actor gave the salvation message and invited the audience to pray the sinner’s prayer.  I was expecting that it would turn out like every other Christian event I’ve attended which has followed that format, in which peer pressure results in everyone praying but no one truly meaning it. 

But then the actor surprised me.  He told us that if anyone had just prayed that prayer and become a Christian, he wanted them to do a courageous thing: stand and declare to the world what the Lord had done in them.  He explained the reasons for this stand, and then gave the signal.  Across the dark room, courageous people rose, their new Helper giving their legs strength.  Not hundreds, but at least fifteen or twenty people stood.  Suddenly, a movement right behind me caught the corner of my eye, and the man rose who had been sitting next to the distracting, chatty little boy. 

Tears came to my eyes again as I realized that if I had shushed that boy, it would have been as if I was saying in front of that unsaved man, “Be quiet!  I’m a follower of Jesus and I want to hear what He has to say.”  My judgment on that little boy was founded on selfishness, and who knows but that the Holy Spirit used the boy’s innocent questions to strike conviction in that man’s heart? 

  
At home after the play, though it was almost midnight I just couldn’t resist.  I googled the pastor with the dreadlocks.  And what I found was that he was a man passionate for the Gospel.  So passionate, in fact, that he goes out on the streets of Portland to reach the unreached, dreadlocks definitely making that approach simpler than if he were a clean-cut do-gooder in a suit coat.  If you disagree, you don’t know Portland. 

This is not either a defense or condemnation of dreadlocks or of chatting during plays for that matter.  This blog is not the place for that.  However, it is a condemnation of my reaction to those two things.  It is a challenge to understand that I never know how or by whom the Holy Spirit is going to work, and for me to get in the way of that with my own self-righteousness-steeped, judgment-dripping self is a move too dangerous to risk. 

"Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."  ~John 7:24 

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Photo: aluedt

I Have a Better Idea!

It was a simple little thing.  But I had a better idea, as usual.  We found ourselves without the songsheets to several hymns we would be singing at a gathering.  The introduction to the first song was climaxing and Mama whispered, “Would you go get copies of the words from the back?” 

 

Cue my “better” idea.  

 

“Yes, I’ll go get them right after we’re done,” I whispered back. We were in the very front, and as I glanced back at all the people behind us, I just knew that it would unseemly for me to walk past all of them while they were singing a hymn.  Why, that would be a positive distraction! 

 

Mama said nothing and did not even frown, but my conscience instantly smote me as I realized what I had just done.  Yet I was still slow on the uptake as I guiltily whispered during the first verse of the song, “Did you want those words now?” 

 

“That would be nice,” was her reply.  So I rose and fetched the words—a simple task, which happily proved not to be a spiritual hindrance to anyone present.  I even arrived back in time for the third verse. 

 

Ironically, it was during the singing of another song the next day that the Lord hit me with the full measure of what He had wanted to teach me through that little interchange with my mother.  I was lilting happily through “All Creatures of Our God and King,” but when I got to the fifth verse, the words stuck in my throat: “Let all things their Creator bless, and worship Him in humbleness…” 

 

The music faded in my ears and, like a waterfall, the realization tumbled upon me that it had been pride yesterday that had refused a simple opportunity to bless Mama.  It had been pride that had made me care what everyone sitting behind me would think.  It had been pride that carried me to the back of the building to get the songsheets when I finally did do the right thing.  And it was pride that was now preventing me from worshipping my first love.  My pride of yesterday with such a simple little thing had been but the symptom of a deeper big thing: replacing my first love with self-love. 

 

A thunderclap of conviction followed the waterfall of realization, and I knew that this pride was why I had been unable to worship the Lord with my whole heart in recent weeks.  That song service, however, when I confessed my pride to the Lord, was filled with blessing and joy and sweet rain to a thirsty heart. 

 

You know how once you started loving salted caramel treats you began to see salted caramel everything everywhere?  Or how after you first heard about kombucha you started being bombarded by kombucha from all directions?  It was the same way with pride: once the Lord showed me my problem, I started to find it in myself everywhere I turned!  I would be reflecting on a past conversation, hoping that I had come across as brilliant and sparkling, only to realize that it was pride that was dwelling on that hope.  I would be thinking about future interactions, planning how I would impress and astound, only to realize that there again was the ugly weed of pride.  I soon discovered that one of the most righteous kings in the Old Testament had the same problem that I have. 

 

“But Hezekiah did not repay according to the favor shown him, for his heart was lifted up; therefore wrath was looming over him and over Judah and Jerusalem.  Then Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the LORD did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah.” -2 Chronicles 32:25-26

 

So instead of pride, I have a better idea…er, I mean, that is, God has a better idea!  To humble myself.  To look for little ways to die to self and bless others.  To focus on being God’s instrument rather than on impressing other people.  To refuse to be led by what others think and instead to be led by what God commands.  To be willing to say, “God, I want You to humble me as low as You desire.”  It really is such a simple little thing, but the results are simply huge. 

Photo Credit: Victor Bezrukov

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Don't Go Back!

Moment of Truth

This was the moment of decision. I had committed myself to God's ways. I had cried out in repentance to Him. I had purposed "never again." And yet, all of a sudden, it looked so good. Denying myself seemed so cruel--impossible even. And so, in rebellion, I turned my back on God to enjoy my sin. The moment of delight was fleeting, and it turned to gravel in my mouth before it was completed. And then horror and sorrow and guilt flooded over me, and pride shamed me before God, like Adam and Eve hiding naked from God. I repented in that instant, but I do not forget: I delighted in sin.

My story reminds me of another story, when once upon a time, an entire nation was subdued and shackled by another country. They struggled and groaned and wept and bled and cried and starved and died gruesome deaths. Every day, their twenty-four hours were not their own, but those of a cruel taskmaster. There was no purpose, no joy, no vision--only death, darkness, and disease, eating away at their souls. One day, their plight came to the attention of a great king. He was so stricken by their struggle that he called up a servant to go in His name and free the people. And, through a series of miraculous (if this was a fairy tale, one might call them magical) events, the powerful country was brought to its knees in fear of the great king, and the enslaved nation was freed.

You thought I was telling you the story of the Israelites coming out of Egypt? So I was, but this is also my story--is it yours? Has God unlocked your shackles and led you out of Egypt?

The Passing Pleasures of Sin

I am out of Egypt, but there are times when I look back with a longing gaze. Here is what I say to God at those times, in the most complaining voice possible: "Oh, that I had died by Your hand in the land of Egypt, when I sat by the pots of meat and when I ate bread to the full! For You have brought me out into this wilderness to kill  me with hunger (see Exodus 16:2-3)." Oh, I can feel that rumble in my tummy, and all of a sudden, nothing matters but satisfying my voracious fleshly appetite. My heart turns back to Egypt (Acts 7:39), and the battle is lost.

Now listen to me! Has God done miraculous and unexplainable things in your life? Has He freed you and led you out of bondage to sin and into His marvelous freedom? (Read about what He has done in my life in "I Didn't Buy My Ticket Out of Egypt.") Then why are you hardening your heart like the Israelites (Hebrews 3:8)? Why are you worshipping your pet idol in the hot desert sands? Why are you looking back to Egypt when there is a Promised Land in front of you? Egypt is all that is carnal and ugly: "And their dead bodies [will lie] in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified (Revelation 11:8)."

This battle with sin is not our pastor's battle, our parents' battle, our mentor's battle--it is our battle. "By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible (Hebrews 11:24-27)."

Refuse fame, reject the passing pleasures of sin, and renounce the treasures of the world. By faith, I am not going back to Egypt, and it matters not to me how the principalities of the world rail against me. I beg of you--don't go back either.

Picture Credits:
#1: Stephen Poff
#2: Michael Thompson

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.