Brown's Daily Word 6/11/15

The Lord blessed us again last evening with a wonderful and sweet Wednesday evening gathering.  The food was delicious.  Once again the fellowship was very sweet accompanied by deep sharing.  It is official now - we will leaving here, 131 Maple Drive, Endicott at the end of June and moving to Marathon, New York.  I will be serving at the Marathon United Methodist Church.  Alice has been teaching at the Marathon Central Schools for last fifteen years.  We will be living in the town of Marathon, which is situated midway between Binghamton,  New York and Syracuse, New York.

 

    The Christian life is an invitation to an undisturbed joy and it also is accompanied by unending battles.  We may face a sudden new challenges in life that come to us uninvited.  Often our externalities become the Lord's opportunities in our lives.  Our disappointments become the Lord's appointments with us.  In the Book of James we are reminded that standing strong in hard times brings its own reward.  We will be “approved” by God.  We will “pass the test.”  We will “gain the prize.” 

 

    Our oldest granddaughter taking fiddle lessons and playing fiddle really well.  She has also been learning to play guitar.  Simeon is also learning to play certain chords, and even Ada played guitar for her Auntie Laureen one day.

 

    Recently Ann Voskamp wrote a blog entry called The Law of Guitar Days.  It is based on the observation that in order to make beautiful music, you must put the guitar strings under great stress:

Music is made in stress. A string has to be stressed, it has to be pulled tight, to make music. The string has to be moved from its comfortable, resting position if it’s ever going to be make music.

    A limp string makes no music.  You have to tighten it and then tighten it some more.  Only when the string is pulled taut can it produce a beautiful sound.  So it is with you and me.  When we are relaxed and comfortable, when the bills are paid, our family is intact, and all is well in our little corner of the world, life may be grand, but we don’t make much music then.  A limp string makes no music

We have to be pulled taut, stretched in ways that make us scream with pain, pulled almost to the breaking point, tightened again and again by the Master Musician who knows how much we can take and who will not stop until we are stretched to the point where our lives produce the beautiful music of heaven.

 

    No one says that this process is easy or fun or painless.  Making music for God comes at a high cost, but that music, the melody that our lives produce when we are put under stress and yet endure it joyfully because we are trusting in the Lord, that song we sing, the Symphony of Suffering, that is what it means to be “approved” and to “pass the test.”  We all want the music of heaven, but we don’t want the pain.  However, they go together.  You can’t have one without the other.

In Christ,

 Brown

https://youtu.be/Rm5kx3xqmg0