Out of Sync - Out of Tune

Last week at the Barn was quite humbling. It seemed like one of those nights that God places before you that you might learn once again what it means to really focus on him. From the start the night was filled with a bit of crazy energy. We met with Bill Koch from YFC about getting a sort of Bible Club going at Pleasant Valley, and so from the beginning of my night I was running all around. At first I wanted to take some time, set up the equipment for the night, play through that nights songs and pray, but it only turned out that I had time to set up the equipment, and start a fire to warm the building before people started to show.

After the meeting, which went really well, I began to notice that most of the students were super hyper. As of now I still do not understand why everyone was so hyper that night, but they were. Maybe it had to deal with actually getting out to the Barn after all the snow, but who knows. Anyway, I started giving announcements and all, and had to hush people like a million times, while the whole band had itchy fingers to play. After settling and watch them unsettle again then settling them again, we prayed and began the music aspect.

Here everything started getting even crazier. On the first verse of the first song I broke my E string. Luckily, I was able to play through the rest of the night without it, but it seemed to throw my whole guitar out of whack. In between the songs I began to tune up again, and then just as I was about to start playing the cord came out of my guitar. Putting it back in we played the next song, and because I did not get to go through it, I played it faster than I would have liked, and no one really knew it so it wasn't that great. Then we played the next song, but the guitar sounded way out. So I tuned to Kyle's guitar, and played the last song, but it still was way out of tune (and to tune again would have been a way bigger distraction). It was really really bad. I did everything I could to not play at all, but still play a bit.

The night from there seemed so tense for me, just getting everyone to calm down for our discussion time and all, but I did notice one thing: During the music section of the night the voices sounded amazing! The guitars were all out of whack and the night was really off, but the voices of the students encouraged me so much I forgot about all that was going wrong. They were really worshiping, and showing the LORD the worship he truly deserves. It gave me a whole new understanding what God means by telling us to worship in Spirit and in Truth (John 4). He means not that everything must go well; that our guitars must sound just right - though he deserves the best we can give - but sometimes the best we can give to him is just in our hearts and learning that no matter how the music sounds, he is still a great God and worthy of our praise. What an amazing night!