I was listening to an interview of a young person the other day. I don’t remember the show, but they were being asked why they were attending the church they were at. The only thing that I remember the young person saying was how much the passion of the congregation attracted her. It was one of those times when everything in your mind is pushed away and that one truth just knocks you right between the eyes. I thought of the book by John Piper, “Let the Nations be Glad”, in which he stated that missions exists because worship does not. How can I live a life of worship? As I was thinking about that today, I thought about the guitar lessons I would be teaching tonight and how these lessons will impact my students. Then it hit me, my worship lifestyle must be a learned behavior. When I give a lesson, the goal is to play. No matter how much the player knows, playing is the desired activity. With each lesson, the player understands more, has improved on the first lessons, and can attempt more difficult things. With all this study, the outcome is playing. The student continues to play.
As a Christian, my goal is to worship. We were created to worship God and bring Him glory. All of life’s lessons prepare us to worship. As a student of God, I study His word, I pray, and I have fellowship with other believers. All of this is used by God to enable my worship. We should not study for the sake of study or to obtain knowledge for its own end. Our study should sharpen our focus on God and who He is, and open our eyes to ourselves and who we are. As we recognize God and His majesty we can not help but stand in awe and worship. Jesus said, “..If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Me…”. I commit to making a more concerted effort in living all of my life to bring Glory to my God. As I worship Him, my faith grows, my love for Him grows, and my desire to accomplish His will in my life grows. As I see God work in my life, I worship Him more and the cycle continues.
I believe we need to demonstrate a true passion for our Saviour. I don’t mean a bunch of contrived actions or planned manipulations of peoples emotions, but an honest expression of a life sold out to our loving Lord. That can only happen as we spend time getting to know our Saviour. I confess, that way to much time goes by between my conversational times with God. It is a struggle to shut out the noise and distraction of the world and take time to invest in our relationship with God, but that is what we are called to do as believers. We were created to glorify God, and we can only do that to our level of understanding. Let us not wait until we have a certain level before we worship. Just as the musician plays and uses his study to improve, let us take on the same mindset and worship, using our study to have a greater understanding of God to fuel a life lived to worship God in Spirit and Truth.
Father, consume me, Fill me with a passion to know You so that my life honors Your son.
A few days ago I had a web site crash. I am rebuilding the site a bit at a time. Be patient and stay close.
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I went to the Arlington Guitar Show Saturday and wandered around for a few hours. I found some really notable items that I would like to share with you.
The first item is a pedal called “Lemon Aid”. This pedal offers a clean, treble and full boost all in one. However, each boost position is adjustable in several aspects. You can make any one of the desired boost settings either thicker or thinner or you can cut the overall output to make the effect more subtle. The combinations of all of the available settings give you a myriad of boosts and frequency modifications. We love to use it as a lead boost for any overdrive but on its own you can achieve the most lush and beautiful clean tones that sustain incredibly well. You can also run the pedal on its loudest setting and slam the front end of your amp for natural crunchy tones. The Lemon Aid works equally well as a bass boost and an acoustic guitar preamp. The person I saw demo this item went through several settings and I loved the way you could set this device to give you a clean boost with no coloration of the original tone. Check out their web site www.rockettpedals.com. If your looking for an excellent boost in volume without changing your original tone you drink some “Lemon Aid”!
I believe the highlight of my visit to the show was a very unexpected surprise. I had heard of Flaxwood guitars in an add from a magazine. I thought they looked pretty good so I checked out their website. That’s when I found out that they were a composite material and active electronics. I thought to myself these things are going to sound like ice picks. I could imagine the thin shrill tones coming from a sorta plastic guitar with overblown electronics trying to compensate for the lack of resonance in the body. I walked past the booth and there was a gentleman playing one of the guitars and I started looking for the Les Paul that was drowning out what he was playing. Then I thought, that’s not a Les Paul, its him. I stood there a minute and listened to the man play and couldn’t believe the rich tone that the guitar was producing. I thought, ok, let’s turn off the effects and hear the real guitar. One of the reps saw me standing and offered me a guitar to play. It was called a “Laine” and had 3 single coils, 5-way switch and a trem, so I sat down and played without an amp first. The first thing I noticed was the balance the instrument had. It just fit my body and was not a struggle to keep in a playing position. It was very light weight, but felt like a fine precision tool. I began to think I may have mis-judged this thing. When I played without an amp I could feel each note throughout the whole guitar. It just wanted to sing and soar with every thing that was asked of it. The neck was so smooth and fast that I felt that I had been playing it for years. It was extremely comfortable. It was a satisfying experience without even plugging it in. Then I plugged it in. The volume and tone controls were very responsive and the range of tone was to die for. I went from warm classy jazz tones to melt your face off metal with the twist of a couple of knobs. The one feature I really liked was the blend knob. This allowed you to add the neck pickup in varying degrees to the middle and bridge pickups. The guitar was a joy to play and gave me a severe case of g.a.s.!!! I can only hope that one of these will be in my future. If you are in the market for a new electric you owe it to yourself to check this out before you buy, but beware there is a stiff sticker shock. However, it may be well worth it, as this would probably be your only guitar. Visit them at Flaxwood.com.
