As I practiced the baritone on Saturday afternoon, I marveled that I was even playing the thing. All those years playing tuba in middle school, high school, and college add up, but I was never a really good musician. I’ve been around really good musicians before.
One of my roommates in college picked up the harmonica I got for Christmas and in 15 minutes was playing melody after melody. I asked how long he played. He said he never had before. So much for the many hours of practice I put into that harmonica without a single song coming out.
There was another young lady who went to Peru with us about 20 years ago to play with our church’s orchestra. I actually ran into her at a high school music festival in Wisconsin last January. She was a French horn performance major in Minneapolis who practiced her horn for many hours each day. To this day, I remember the music from her horn. It was beautiful! Her music was the kind that makes it on a CD. I felt kind of bad, her having to sit next to me on our mission trip so many years ago and endure more than one wrong note on the tuba.
It is humbling, to say the least. Most people of my inabilities gave up a long time ago on things like music. But there is something in my heart that knows how the music is supposed to sound. And there is something in my body that wants to bring it out. And so I bring my music out and say to God, “Here God. This music is for you. It’s not much and I know others can do better. But I can’t give you any less than my best.”
“Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet;
Praise Him with the lute and the harp!
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD!”
Psalm 150:3,6