Musings of a Piano Player

I don't play the piano well. I don't play badly, but I don't play very well either.
And that's how I ended up experiencing what I experienced Sunday.

When you have a talent that falls somewhere around mediocre you have to concentrate on the one thing that could possibly make it better. So last week I spent some time thinking about that.

I've thought over and over again during some of our song services, that should Jesus Christ be sitting in one of our pews, the tone of our worship would change. We'd sing different, we'd sing more passionately, we'd sing wholeheartedly, we'd sing through tears and we'd all note the words we were singing, rather than just singing the words.

So sitting at my piano, considering this thought, I wondered how the same thing would apply to my playing. So the experiment began.

I went to church Sunday morning and began to play. Looking through the open lid of the piano in my direct line of sight were the pews on the opposite end of the church. So, I planted my audience there. Mentally I was playing for my King, and my King was sitting right there in that pew. Within a few minutes I knew it wasn't working. My playing hadn't changed, I felt nothing of any noticeable difference in the song service and was about to call the whole plan a flop.

That's when I realized the touch of ignorance in my whole plan. What talent I do have, isn't my own. Every single note I play comes out of Gods graciousness in my life, so I was really attempting to play on my own for a King that knew I couldn't. Suddenly that pew on the opposite side of the church seemed too far away. And I realized the problem with my plan lay with where I put Christ. I put Him in the audience.

I repented, right then and there I realized my error and told Him how foolish and absurd my plan was. And then I moved Him to His rightful place. I asked Him to sit on the bench with me and help me play.

Instantly the change happened. My sound didn't get better though, actually it started to get a lot worse. My hands began shaking and I felt entirely overwhelmed in His presence. You play a lot of notes in about 60 seconds time, and for those 60 seconds I was worse than useless. So I did the only thing I could think of that would keep the song service going.

You're not going to like what I say next.

I kicked Him off the bench.

If I've read it once I've read it and heard it 50 times. Feed yourself on your own time. If you're in a leadership role in Church, maybe you know what I'm talking about.
Since I'm not entirely sure what to say to justify or condemn my actions I'm going to move on to one more thing.

While Phoenix was here, mornings were more hectic. And I almost entirely forgot to take the vitamins that have given me such relief in my hands the last two months or so. I'd remember the pills randomly throughout the day but not while I was in a spot where I could go take them. Within two days my hands were already worse than they were when I first started the pills. Randomly my hands would either refuse to move when I told them to, or they would move when I wasn't telling them to. The strangeness of it all plagued me every day, throughout the day -- except when I sat down to play for church.
I could barely play at home, and I can't tell you how nervous I was when I sat down each time at church, but God always allowed the problems to just vanish during that 15 minutes.

God is more than enough for me.