The Family, the Kingdom, and the Guitar

I never intended to learn to play the guitar. This was my grandmother’s idea. I was well accomplished as a singer when I became a Christian in my teens, but musical instruments were a mystery to me. When, at age 15, I felt a call to serve in ministry, my Pastor’s wife cornered me and insisted I learn how to play the piano. “It will help you wherever the Lord might take you,” she insisted and, as usual, she was right.

My grandmother was very happy about this new pursuit as was a local family friend who gifted us a refurbished spinet piano. What started as one instrument led to two, then three. Today, I am an accomplished musician on over a dozen instruments and have even toured professionally as a pianist and vocalist. But I must again say, I never intended to learn to play the guitar. I was forced into it when my grandmother handed me an acoustic Epiphone guitar she saved up $189 to buy from a local pawn shop. Now, I was obligated.

Learning to play meant hours of pain. For those who have never attempted to learn the guitar, try imagining the joyful feeling of rubbing your fingertips across grating steel wires over and over again while trying to convince the instrument to produce music instead of noise. To this day I’m no professional. I can hold my own, but the fancy things so many guitarists can do remain beyond me. But I learned, which was all my grandmother wanted, and that “cheap” guitar still sits in the sanctuary where I serve today as a Pastor and is played every single week. 

Before learning to play, I learned the basic mechanics of a guitar – things like how to hold it without dropping it, how to put on strings, and how to tune the instrument. From something as mundane as tuning a guitar came a wonderful spiritual lesson. There are six strings on a guitar which are tuned to E, A, D, G, B, and E (two octaves higher than the previous E) when using standard tuning. Each one has an assigned tone. Each one must be tuned to that tone precisely in order to produce the desired sound when placing your fingers in the proper configuration to make chords.

Imagine, if you will, a guitar with each of the six strings is tuned to the exact same tone. The guitarist places the fingers of one hand in the appropriate places on the various strings to make a chord. Taking a pick in the other hand hand, the guitarist strikes the strings expecting beautiful music but, instead, is met with a horrible cacophony of discordant noise. What went wrong here?

The guitar is not the problem as it is well constructed according to the design of a master instrument maker and has been maintained in perfect condition. The guitarist is not the problem as they are highly skilled after many decades of practice and performance. The pick is not the problem. The composition of the strings is not the problem as they are made from only the best materials. The problem comes down to tuning. Beautiful music will never come from a guitar in which every string is tuned identically. Each string must be tuned according to its proper design so it may fulfill its intended purpose.

Within a family, not every child is the same nor should that be our goal. Every child, just like every parent, is a unique creation by God. The Creator forms us with all of our little peculiarities and nuances. Not every difference is a defect to be corrected. It might be a facet of our design which, when nurtured, will bring glory to God. A parent is ordained of God to help keep that little string in tune according to its design. Our dreams, goals, ambitions, and designs for our own children must be secondary to the primary purpose for which they were created. We honor the Creator by nurturing our children in His will and keeping them in tune for their eternal purpose. Parents are not in a competition to make their children “just like” others; they are given a commission to raise their children to sound out their own proper tone in harmony with the plans and purposes of God.

Our children take their place in the world and the Kingdom just as a guitar string. Together with other strings, they take their place not only in the work of the family, but the purpose of the Kingdom. Once in place and in tune, the Almighty and Eternal God places His expert fingers on their lives in just the right places to produce the right sounds. Now, with each string bringing its unique tone and characteristic to the instrument, the Master Musician strikes a chord and beautiful harmony drifts through the air bringing with it joy and peace.

The family and the Kingdom function best in the image of harmonious diversity. As our Apostle Paul instructed the Church at Corinth in regard to spiritual gifts, there are differences of gifts but the same Spirit is at work in all of them (1 Corinthians 12:11). Each child is a string. Let us help them seek the will of God for the tone He would have for them, and ask His help in keeping our families in tune.