I am a singer and guitarist. Many days I don’t feel good enough to carry the title of guitarist. “Singer” feels more comfortable. I’ve spent years honing that craft and practicing. I’ve taken voice lessons from some amazing teachers. I’ve performed and sung in front of crowds. “Singer” fits me. It’s comfortable.
“Guitarist” doesn’t fit as well. I am self taught. I haven’t played in front of people as much as I have sung. I’m getting better, but it’s still a major struggle.
I think God might be more pleased with my guitar playing than my singing.
Because singing comes more naturally to me, I’ve become lazy. I used to take time and warm up. I used to practice; really practice. Now, I hum a couple scales, call it good, and sing mediocre at best. And when I sing mediocre, people are still impressed. I don’t say this to boast, but to let it sink into my brain. I’m settling for mediocre because everyone else likes it. It’s not the best I can do. It’s not the best I can offer God, yet I still settle with it.
With guitar playing, it’s different. When I get up to play in front of people, I’m usually sweating. And shaking. I have to practice so much more with guitar. It doesn’t come naturally. It’s hard. I have to think and focus, especially if I’m singing while playing. I usually flub several progressions, lose my rhythm, and still can’t seem to play a decent F chord.
But I don’t think God minds at all. In fact, I think He likes it when I play. Even though it’s often sloppy, it’s my best. It’s never showy or impressive, and I think God likes that. Like a little child who proudly plays his out of tune song to Mom and Dad, I bring my sloppy guitar playing to God, saying, “Listen to this!”
And just like Mom and Dad ignore the wrong notes and bask in the hard work of their child, I think God smiles at each and every muffled F chord I make.
That is sobering Jamie… that our confidence in a skill we have can lead us to be less competent than we could be. That our confidence leads us to putting in less than proper effort to remain on top of our skill. A lesson we should all take to heart.
We should continually work on our skill. I think repeating fundamentals is huge in doing so. My children were very good athletes and I think a big part was that although they were good at a skill we would go over the fundamentals almost every practice. Boring yes; but so valuable.
I think that we should also seek to do something in our skill set that would stretch us and make us improve. We could ask ourselves “let me see if I can do this”.
I’ve recently started to sing on the worship team at our church. We don’t normally know what we’re singing until that morning. There are a lot of songs that we sing that I am still unfamiliar with (even after attending the church for over a year). It can be very intimidating not to know what we’ll be singing, but I’ve had to lean more on the Holy Spirit and less on my natural ability–and although uncomfortable, I think it helps with the temptation of being prideful due to my own ability. I hope that made sense.
It absolutely makes sense. Thanks for sharing.
“Like a little child who proudly plays his out of tune song to Mom and Dad” – beautiful metaphor! Great reminder about where our hearts should be in worship, Jamie!
Thanks, Stephen.