Journal 18 -- Broken Strings

Broken guitar strings are a common problem among musicians, and there is never a good time to break your strings. It doesn't happen that often for me, but when it does, it's annoying. It's like car trouble...when is it a good time to have car trouble? Never! Anyways, back to the guitar. Sometimes I'll break a string while practicing or playing at my house, and it's not a big deal. However, I often will break a string right in the middle of a song while playing a concert or leading worship, and it becomes a big deal. And that's what happened the other day.

I'm singing my heart out, getting into the music while leading worship, when I hit the strings to sharply, and "POP", my string breaks. The guitar immediately goes out of tune, and I'm completely distracted from my task. I rip the string off in mid strum, and continue singing the song, hoping the people in the crowd didn't notice. I'm frustrated at this point, and just want to stop playing and fix the guitar. But, I didn't. I powered through the song, adjusted to the circumstances, and tried to adapt to my surroundings. I didn't have a band behind me, and I didn't have an extra set of strings...so I was out of luck. I thought to myself, "if I had a piano, I could sit down at it, and lead worship from there", but I didn't have a piano. So, we sang some worship songs accapella...just our voices and God. It was beautiful!

Life throws us broken strings all the time. Our circumstances are constantly changing, and we never know what is around the corner. Life can be going so great and we can be cruising along, when out of the blue we "break a string". We get tripped up on this world, or we have to go through a difficult time in our life, and all of a sudden we get distracted from our focus. We have to learn to adapt to our surroundings and adjust to our circumstances. God doesn't promise that everything will always be great...but He does promise to be there no matter what we are going through. Our surroundings can be so inconsistant sometimes, but our God is consistant. He is the rock we can stand on when our bearings are messed up...He is the foundation we can build on when we can't find our floorplans...He is our compass when the storms of life come rolling in. He was, He is, and He is to come! God is the same, always! It's very refreshing to know we can go to God when there is no where else to turn!

I hope you remember that God is always there for you...Go to Him when you find your circumstances are changing. He wants to be your guide when you "break your strings" in life. Depend on Him, and He will carry you. We can't gaurantee that life won't get in the way, but we can trust that God is right beside us when we fall.

He was, He is, and He will always be God. And that is why all is well.
Brad