Six Sharps

Matt Short is one of our incredible trumpet players at the church. He told me the other day that he mentioned to his band teacher that sometimes he plays in 6 sharps at church. She asked Matt if the music minister hated him. I got a kick out of that. For the record, no, I don't hate Matt. A lot of awesome songs coming out these days have been written by guitarists. They tend to choose keys that keyboardists and other instrumentalists don't really care for. Not every song we give them ends up in 6 sharps. But when you're trying to navigate all those sharps, one song can feel like too much. On the other hand, if you can master playing with all those sharps, you'll be able to navigate just about any piece of music that comes your way.

While mulling this over, I began to see a correlation with my troubles and challenges frustrating me to the point of wondering if God hates me. Of course, we know He doesn't. But sometimes, if you're really honest about it, you can start to wonder if He cares about what you're going through.
Here's the cool part. If we can learn to navigate and persevere through these tough situations, He's turning us into one awesome "Musician". Our life becomes a beautiful song. If we can get through one incredibly tough piece of music, it gives us confidence to dive into the next one. When we realize the glory that He wants to bring to our lives, we can actually be thankful for all the sharps He's tossed at us today.

1st Peter 1:3-7 "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."