Pieces

Yesterday morning, God taught me a lesson.

I believe that God is always instructing us, helping us grow in many ways. But yesterday He came to church, soared right up on stage, and gave me a good firm shake in front of the entire congregation. He allowed me to be embarrassed, anxious, and finally humbled before Him and my church family.

Yesterday morning, my trust in fallible things got the better of me.

During the first service I noticed that one of the switches on a pedal I use wasn't quite working properly. It still worked, but needed a good stomp to activate it, something that bothered me just enough to try to fix it. As soon as the service ended, I set to work. I've had this exact same problem many times before, and I've done the same quick fix successfully every time. The housing for the switch tends to come loose, so I just have to pop it open, fiddle around, and tape it back up. However, when I put everything back together, I realized that I had forgotten to reapply the tape. No big deal, I'll get through second service and take care of it before third. So I plugged my guitar back in, turned my amp back on, and hit a test chord.

No sound.

We still had a few minutes before starting time, so I ran through what should have been a quick diagnostic- pulling out various pedals until I found the culprit, and make do without it for a while.

One pedal gone, no sound.

Two gone, no sound.

Three, no sound.

9:45 came quickly and I finally took a glance up to see 650 pairs of eyes focused on me, frantically messing around with stuff instead of starting the first song. I began panicking- if I can just get something to work, maybe they won't notice things are different.

A quick aside here for those of you that aren't familiar with the technology. The source of the problem was a pedal that I never turn off. It goes on when the first song starts and off when the last one ends. It's the thing that makes everything sound like it's supposed to- full and chimey and worshippy. Never have I played without it. Ever. Think of it as a singer's microphone or a drummer's drumsticks.

Back to my near-panic attack. I finally got a sound from my amp, at the cost of half my pedal board and the first 5 or 10 minutes of the service. Still everyone is staring at me. But we started.

And we got through the first song. And the second and third, and soon we were done. I didn't even bother trying to fix anything after that, at risk of causing even more problems. To be honest, I was completely flustered throughout the entire service. I was frustrated at my inability to fix the problem. I was upset that I wasn't comfortable with the necessary adjustments I had to make. Even though the people around me were helping out and encouraging me the whole time, I was agitated and ungracious.

I've had small kinks in services before. Forgetting to turn my amp on, not turning the volume up on my guitar, hitting a wrong chord here and there. But I've never been in a situation like this before. And for the next 12 hours, God was speaking one message to me.

I am always in control, let Me handle it.

I texted my sister during our break in second service, asking her for prayer. As I did, her favorite verse was echoing in my head.

Be still and know that I am God.

My confession is that I am rarely able to do that. I sure wasn't able to then, even while I spoke those words to myself. If I run into a dead end, I think I can find a way around it. I can fix a problem. I can resolve an uncertainty. Sure, God will help me, but I still think that I am capable of handling it.

My pride still stands in the way of trust. Even when we started playing and I knew that we were praising God despite the setback, I was concerned with the fact that I didn't do as much as I thought I should have. This song by Red was on repeat on my ipod all day after church, and I can't possibly think of a more appropriate statement. Take a few minutes to listen and focus on the lyrics.

God completely shattered my comfort in front of everyone yesterday. This morning I was still shaken up by the impact it had on me. I was entirely struck down so He could come in and take control, so He could show me in the most dramatic way that even though I fall apart, Christ makes me whole and in turn glorifies the Father.