A Quarter Note in the Melody of Life

Anyone who knows me knows that music is an important thing to me. I love listening to it, love playing it, and love randomly singing it. It has the power to psych me up, mellow me out, or let me focus. I love hearing things that I haven't heard before. I'll give just about anything a listen. My Itunes is an eclectic catologue of genres and languages.

One Thing that really amazes me is when the lyrical poetry of an artist not only brushes the emotions I'm feeling, but grabs them, rips them open and explores every corner. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. When a piece of music can so intricately express an inner emotion, more so then I can myself, I hold onto it. I'm sure this is extremely common among people as music is such a powerful, global language, but none the less. to sit quietly, eyes closed and listen to the words flow, allowing them to saturate me mentally, takes me to a place that I really can't express.

Worship music specifically is going through a time of evolution for me. I've played guitar and sung on a worship team for many years now. It's always been important to me, but I've stopped playing recently. It was somewhat of a decision between myself and our lead pastor. I guess more accurately it was my decision and his decision individually that just happened to happen at the exact same point in time. It's a somewhat interesting story, but a different story all together from this one. Anyways, Worship has always been important to me, but I think it lost something through the years. I guess its possible that maybe it didn't lose something but rather it never had it. Lately however, it's definitely had something new in the experience. It's no longer just words to a melody, it still is that, but its not JUST that. I'm not just taking part in the process of worship, I'm experiencing it. I can't explain it, and for that I apologize. I can only say that I'm excited for it, and I am striving not to loose it. It's to easy to allow it to be an outward action that has no emotional backing, but I want it to be the opposite. I want it to be an inward emotion that expresses itself outwardly. And if I get back into being on stage leading worship in some form. I hope that I can hold onto that, and not just slide into merely playing the notes.

Mountains and Valleys

"We don't grow on the mountain tops, we grow in the valleys". How true are those words. Even in my paraphrased version of the wisdom of another man, words couldn't ring truer. It seems like in the world of believers, we all long for those mountaintop experiences. Those moments where it feels like God is right in front of our eyes, embracing us in his arms. But does growth REALLY happen at those moments? I think it would be foolish to whole heartedly scream no, but I think it would be realistic to say that its the exception, not the rule. Those moments are great reminders. Great prompters. Great feelings. But growth? As I've thought about that quote, I personally, would tend to lean towards no. It takes trials to build character it seems. For whatever reason, it seems that we need to hurt in order to come to a place of true growth. To come to the place where in private we fall to our knees, body shaken by sobs of the heart, fully real with no false face and yearn for God to help us to become better. I know for myself, I'm learning to stop in the valleys, the low times of life, and look around. To allow God to show me what it is I need to see. A Mountain top naturally is a desolate, windswept place. Valleys are lush with vegetation and wildlife.

Faith

So Tomorrow ( Wed, 5th ) I go under the needles again. I am once again ordaining my body with art. Thats right. It is once again tattoo time. I'm of a somewhat firm belief that tattoos should express something of meaning. This tattoo is of the word "Faith", I think the meaning is pretty self explanatory, sort of. It's a reminder to myself. A reminder that this world isn't a very stable place. That the things we have aren't guaranteed to stick around. The only truly stable thing is God. So I'm getting this permanent addition to continually remind me to trust him. It's a tough lesson to learn, and I'm a slow learner. I figure this way its always right there to remind me when I forget.

Faith itself is a tough concept to wrap my mind around I find. To believe in what you can't see. It's a hard concept I think. I can totally understand why to those that don't believe in God, faith seems like a false concept. I think the best metaphor for it that I've heard was that faith is like the wind. You can't see the wind, just the effects of the wind. Its the same with faith. We may not be able to see what we believe in, but we can see the effects of it. I've seen God do some powerful things, from allowing a women who medically couldn't have children give birth, to a mans blood stream being purged of carbon monoxide poisoning in a time frame that the doctors couldn't understand it possibly happening in. I know he works in peoples lives, and yet at times I find it really hard to have faith. Its bewildering. I can't even really take that any further, because I don't know how to explain what I mean really.

And so I will go back to counting the hours until my skin is pierced again and again and ink flows into the wounds. Until my body is permanently changed. Until I mark this new beginning with an outward example of an inward journey.

And thus it begins...

Again. Seems that life is full of beginnings, some times we choose to begin again, and others, its chosen for us it seems. This point in my life is one of the latter. I don't feel the necessity to delve into the details behind this apparent new beginning, but in a nut shell it was an un-enjoyable experience for me. However It was, I believe, a much needed experience. I'm seeing that as things continue to happen, God has his hand in my life.

Seems he's trying to tell me its time to straighten up and get things in order. Enough being the stagnant Christian I have been for a long time. I honestly wish that the circumstances could have been different. That heartache wasn't required for me to receive the proverbial slap in the face. But me being me, I guess God figured it would be a pretty effective way of throwing a curve into my life and knocking me back to take a look. As the youth pastor of the church I attend said to me, Sometimes you need to experience stuff first hand to get the message, thats paraphrased but its basically the idea. Someone can tell you that something isn't a good idea, but sometimes we choose to ignore their advice and need to experience the lows to get it. I apparently needed to hit this low though for my eyes to be opened.

Not only was God speaking to me about my current station in life, but also to our head pastor at the church as well. Seems that Gods been speaking to him about me, which is strange and yet amazing to me, and as such some things are changing for me. For one, I'm not on a worship team anymore, or involved in anything at the church for that matter. This is strange for me, because I've been involved with something at church for a long long time, and have been playing on a worship team for years now. It's going to be an adjustment for me to not be involved. I am also joining with a mentor at the church. I'm kind of excited for that. I'm not sure what its all about, but the idea is a good one, and I'm looking forward to seeing what God has in store for that. After a while, we'll see if I get back involved with things at the church. I'm trying not to allow myself to really have any preconceived notions of whether I will or won't get involved again until the time comes around. I just need to try and focus on my spiritual walk, and where I am in life.

Its sad to me that we as people seem to require a bad experience for us to focus on whats important really. I mean it makes sense, when things are good, why sit back and look at things to see where we're at. But at the same time. If we stood back and looked at things when they are going good, couldn't we possibly save ourself from some of the emotional roller coaster that we experience?

I don't know where God is taking me. Only that he is. I know that "he knows the plans he has for me". Its an exciting, and somewhat frightening time for me, but I trust him to support me and help me grow. So here's to new beginnings. Those we choose, and those that choose us.