#7 Blessing in the Gift of Making Music

Music is a truly wonderful gift that God has blessed us with. Every culture in the world has its own music and uses music as an expression of feeling, of hope, of faith, of anger, of conflict, and of love. And we are all able to share in this gift in one form or another.

Personally, however, I am even more thankful that God has given me the gift of making music. Not everyone can make the music, although all can listen and enjoy it. But God has blessed me with the ability to make music to honour and glorify His name.

I love music; I love playing music; and I love listening to music. Yet while it takes up a large portion of my life, I know that such a gift cannot replace what is more important: GOD. And this is the same for anything that takes up lots of your time and energy in life. You may have a particular hobby, job, or sport that takes up considerable amounts of your time, or it may be a preoccupation with something. Whatever it is (and I will add that these things are usually blessings from God for you to enjoy), it must not overtake what is most important.

And the reason I stress this, is that for me, music is a BIG part of my life. And yes, I mean BIG. This past Saturday I played in a concert that I had been joint organising for the last four months. And yes, preparation, rehearsals, individual practice, organisation meetings....and the list goes on....took up LOTS of my time. And this is only a part of the music I am involved in on a regular basis. 

So you get the picture, music is important to me. But there is a danger in this. And there is a danger in anything that takes up so much of your time and energy. The danger is in that this hobby, or job, or love in life, can easily crowd God out. And that must not happen. You cannot let anything crowd God out. And for me, this means that God comes first, and music must always come after Him (along with other things).

A good way to make sure that this happens is to use the blessing that God has given you, and in my case this is music, to the praise and glory of HIS name. Use it to honour and glorify Him, for that is our sole purpose on this earth. We live for His glory, for we live because of Him.

This is something that I always have to remind myself, especially when it comes up to concert time. For when the stress is on, you as a performer want to do well, you want people to like what you do, and you want your audience to have an enjoyable evening. You are out to please your audience, the people who have come to listen to you - that is the task of a performer. But as a Christian this task must come second. For yes, you do need to please an audience, but more importantly you need to play to God's glory. That is foremost. God and His glory must drive you as a performer to seek that high standard. And then when an evening turns out well, you can only reflect and say, 'Yes, God truly has blessed me. It is His gift that I may share with others, that they may enjoy and thereby praise God for it'.

And that's why I love music so much. I can praise my heavenly Father and express the wonder and glory of His name through a wonderful gift He has blessed me with: music.