What a guitar string taught me about God
The guitar is a unique instrument. If a beginner is able to get past the initial discomfort on one's fingertips before calluses form, the guitar can be a relatively easy instrument to learn. It can take years, even decades, to figure out one's personal tastes in term of the preferred sound, style, shape, and feel of the instrument. But for all of the costs associated with all of the different gear in search of "the one", the favorite setup of the player... the most important (and affordable) accessory is the one that most often goes overlooked:
The string.
The guitar, at its core, is really all about accentuating what's happening on the strings. And in order to make music, the strings need to be in tune. Tuning the guitar is one of the very first things you learn as a guitar student. An out-of-tune guitar will ruin perfect playing; nothing will sound right.
Generally, a new guitar player will learn the basic, standard tuning of the guitar. I wanted to play like the blues guitar greats, and so I wasn't going to try anything fancy; I just wanted to play what they played. So I bought a cheap tuner and a beginner's guitar book, and chapter 1 was... tuning! And I follow the same procedure for tuning a guitar over 20 years later.
The lowest, fattest string is tuned to an E when not pressing down on the string anywhere. Then, working my way up to the thinnest, highest string, I tune A, D, G, B, and finally, another E. With the help of a tuner, guitar players can get those strings very close to exact. Get them all in tune, and it's perfect and ready to go, right?
Not quite.
Up and down the neck of the guitar are metal frets. We press down the strings against those frets, and the frets shorten the length of the string that is vibrating. Shorter length of vibration, higher pitch of the note we hear. But if, for example, you try to sound an A note on the low E string, can you be certain that you are hearing exactly an A note? Will it certainly be in tune at the A, when the full, open string is in tune at the E?
Unfortunately, it might be slightly out of tune. A few slight adjustments might need to be made.
Adjusting the guitar's intonation is the process of ensuring a guitar is in tune at every note on the instrument. The open strings might be in tune, but the rest of the notes might be slightly high or low if the intonation is bad. You could play a chord halfway up the neck, and it could sound like a mess. In other places, it might be quite close to being correct. There is a way of fine-tuning the guitar's intonation so that the guitar is (close to) perfectly in tune everywhere, assuming the guitar is made well. Then, and only then, are you ready to unleash your inner guitar hero.
In my early years of my journey with Jesus, I required a lot of tuning, so to speak. The obvious stuff... certain behaviors, tendencies, habits, attitudes, how I treated people... had to be adjusted first. If I were to follow Jesus, I had to start walking in the right direction!
Those early years of major and obvious changes were like the general tuning of a guitar with new strings.
After over 19 years of walking (and limping) forward in this spiritual journey, I have learned that the fine tuning is a never-ending process. And let me be honest here: I am not a super-pious guy. I hate the fine tuning. Very rarely am I saying, "Thank you, Lord!" and much more often I am saying, "Oh, come on. What now?!?!"
One of the only quotes I remember from the show Roseanne when I was kid was the following exchange:
Darlene: "You still have a lot to learn about being a mom."
Rosanne: "No, I HAD a lot to learn about being a mom, and then I learned it, and now... I'm done!"
I can become like that very easily. I had a lot of tuning and intoning to do, but now I'm done. Leave me alone. But I'm reminded of Hebrews 12 and of the fact that disciple and discipline have the same root.
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.” (v.5-6)
and,
10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (v.10-11)
The Lord doesn't stop at the basic tuning of our lives; he truly loves us and wants us to experience lasting peace and joy, so we need to be tuned at the upper registers of our lives so that the melodies we make with our gifts can be full and beautiful.