Wow! Yesterday when I was playing in church, my finger felt so bad that I could barely play. I was wondering how I was possibly going to do special music in this condition. I prayed, and prayed, and prayed, while I was sitting up front, that God would heal my finger, because there was no way I could do a difficult song like that for special music when I could barely play for church. My finger still didn’t feel better. But I had prayed, and I had faith that my prayer would be answered in the best way, although I didn’t know what that was. I sat up on the platform, and watched the service. Suddenly it was time for special music. I had this thought: “Don’t worry about special music, it will go fine.” I carried my chair and footstool up to the mic, then tuned
my guitar. Possibly because I didn’t want to tune too loudly and distract the audience, I tuned my B string very flat. Blissfully unaware, I started playing (on complete faith, because I didn’t know how I was going to make it through the song). Now the song I was playing (It is Well with my Soul) in this arrangement started on the B string, and of course it sounded really flat. As I’m sitting up there playing, all kinds of thoughts are going through my mind. “Why is it so flat? What can I do about it now? What are people going to think if I have to start over? How could I have mistuned it that badly?” Well, God gave me the impression to pause between phrases and reach over and tune it. When a suitable place came, (about 2 lines into the song) I went ahead and tuned mid-song. As it turned out, almost no one noticed anyway. From that point on, I really threw myself into playing. My reasoning was, since my finger was so bad, and I messed up the beginning, then I really should make the rest of it great. At least do what I can! So praying at the same time, I played the song. It was a miracle. My finger didn’t hurt
at all, and I made hardly any mistakes. God really blessed me, and I was not nervous at all. And from comments that people made after church, it seems that they really appreciated the expressiveness with which I played. (Note: Normally when I play, it tends to be sort of mechanical, just going through the motions. I practice expressively, so there’s some expression. But when I perform, I get nervous, so I just pretend to be expressive, and play what I had practiced. This time was notable, because I was able to be naturally expressive in a performance.) The air conditioning turned off during the middle, so towards the end of the song, when I paused before the refrain, it was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. It was just an awesome experience, having the Lord work through me in that way. I want to have that experience next time too. I don’t think it was because the circumstances were any better, it was because I knew I had to rely on the Lord in order to do a good job. I believe that if I can have that attitude every time, (even if my finger isn’t dislocated) then I can be much more
comfortable up front.
Isn't it incredible what God can do when we pray?!?!?!
Amen!!
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