Tonight I was watching the olympics at my friends Dru and Chris’ house.  Sean Johnson had just been awarded the gold medal in gymnastics at age 16 and was holding back tears of joy.  An interview came a bit later, in which her trainer talked about how when she came to his gym in West Des Moines, Iowa at age 6, he asked her “How good do you want to be?”  Ten years later her answer to him had become a reality as she stood on the podium with a gold medal around her neck, hearing the Star Spangled Banner play over the sound system in a gigantic Olympic gym in communist China.  

 

Playing electric guitar came into my mind, like it tends to, and I thought to myself. “If at her age she had  developed to be as good as she set out to be, through intense training and dedication, I also can be as good as I want to if I do the same.” Of course I didn’t SAY those words to myself, but that was the thought process.  So here’s the truth.  Let me get it out there.  I want to be a really good guitar player.  Like Johnny Greenwood good.  Like Omar Rodríguez-López good. Like Michael Guy Chislett good.  Here is why I want to be that good at electric guitar.  Honestly and sincerely I do not want my talent or inability to play to hinder my creativity in worship.  If I hear it in my head and feel it in my soul I want to be able to communicate it through my instrument unhindered.  

 

It’s selfish because I want the satisfaction of being able to seamlessly play the things I hear in my head that I think are great.  It’s selfish because it means a lot to ME how good I am.  It’s honestly not to impress anyone.  No Bull.  I’m not concerned with what you think about my talent or lack thereof.  I need to know that I’m good enough.  It’s selfish because I want to be talented enough to make a living of playing guitar so I don’t have to waste my time doing something else I don’t care about.  I would spend all day at even the best desk job thinking about playing electric guitar.

 

But here’s why it isn’t selfish.  The biggest reason for my wanting to be a fantastic electric guitar player is that I want to communicate my love to the father and I know of no better way to do so, set aside giving my life for his glory.  In my situation, the passion I have in my heart is music.  Not uncommon.  When I try to run from it I get unstable and cranky.  It’s my love.  It’s my outward love to God.  My life’s a lovesong to you.  If I can make a sound that comes from my whole being, if I can make noises and pick the notes that move you, then I am all I need to be as a musician.  If I’m all I need to be as a musician, than I can easier worship with all that I am as a person.  Then it can bless other people, too.  But honestly for nobody else, if I can make sounds that come directly from my love and God is blessed directly, than I have found my portion in life.  My song, my sound will be “I love you.”  I think that sound is crazy and loud.  I think that sound is unbridled and unheard of.  I think it sounds like home.  I think it sounds like hope.  Maybe I am arrogant, but I am not arrogant in this.  Christ is worth my whole life’s efforts.  I would lay it all down and seek after music if it were his will for me.  It may or may not be his will for me, but it burns in my heart every day.  

 

“How good do you want to be?”  I’m a six year old right now in the world of guitar playing, not terribly talented, but being trained in my passion one step at a time.  Ten years from now I want to be standing on a podium receiving the enormous reward of my work.  The biggest reward possible in the world of worship and electric guitar playing.  The reward of chains being broken, lives being healed, eyes being opened, and Christ being revealed on a massive scale wherever the Lord chooses to put me.  If my podium is a stage on a tour, in my little home church , in a studio booth, in a local venue, or in a staduim packed with youth desperate for God, I believe I will see my efforts rewarded.  Because I have said “For my inheritance give me the lost!”  

 

This is why I want to be a really good electric guitar player.  Does that make sense?