“Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, Tune my heart to sing thy grace…”
As I sat in church this morning, I was struck by a
thought: How do we tune our hearts?
The Bible is full of verses about praising the Lord – and
one of my favorites is below:
·
“It is good to praise the LORD and make music to
your name, O Most High, to proclaim your love in the morning and your
faithfulness at night.” (Psalm 92:1-2)
Psalm 150 mentions praising the Lord with the trumpet, harp,
lyre, tambourine, dancing, strings, flute, and cymbals. In fact, everything that has breath is
encouraged to praise the Lord in verse 6.
So, just like I wouldn’t want to play an out-tune-guitar to
praise the Lord, how do I make sure that my heart is in tune so that I can more
fully praise Him? **
Because Robert Robinson penned the words to “Come Thou
Fount” in 1758, it would be next to impossible to ask him what caused him to
use the phrase “tune my heart.” However,
I know that when I heard the words, I immediately thought about how you tune any
instrument…and the following is the result of my research this afternoon:
“Musical instruments are not all tuned in the same way.
Some, for example, need to be tuned by tuning specialists. So, you would
generally have your piano tuned by an expert piano tuner. Other instruments,
however, can be tuned by their players. So, a violinist, for example, would be
expected to keep their own instrument in tune.
The way that you tune an instrument depends on the type of instrument that you play. For example:
The way that you tune an instrument depends on the type of instrument that you play. For example:
·
String instruments -- string instruments are tuned by
turning the pegs at the end of the strings. This alters the actual tension of
the string which affects the notes that can be played on it.
·
Keyboard instruments -- keyboard instruments tend to be
tuned by expert tuners. Again, this is generally about changing the tension of
the strings that produce the notes when keys are played on the keyboard.
·
Drums -- drums come with taps or pegs which, when
turned, change the tension of the drum head itself.
·
Wind instruments -- wind instruments are tuned in
various ways usually by adjusting the position of one or more joints on the instrument.”
It appears that the producing of in-tune music is always about
adjustments and frequently about tension.
The lengthening of ‘barrels’ or joints in wind instruments (or even the shape of the player's mouth or amount of air blown), the valves
in brass instruments, and the tension of strings or drum heads all are
necessary to produce beautiful music. If
the temperature or humidity changes, a skilled musician knows that he/she needs
to perform even more adjustments because the sound could be affected by those
things as well.
Because I am in the process of learning to play the guitar,
I thought I knew all there was to know about guitar tuning. But I looked it up anyway. And although the general concepts were not
new to me – let me tell you what I gathered:
1.
Guitar strings can be tightened or loosened to
match the correct sound. (duh.)
2.
Guitar strings can be made of nylon
(classical/folk guitars), steel/nickel (electric), or bronze (acoustic).
3.
The tensile-strength of a guitar string is
necessary for good sound…and over time, a guitar string can lose its sound and
need to be replaced.
BUT WAIT! Did you
know you could boil guitar strings? I
know. Crazy. Here’s the deal:
·
Old guitar strings can be boiled to cause them
expand and release oil and dirt, vastly improving the sound.
·
New guitar strings can be boiled to allow for
better stretching capabilities, tone and tension.
·
The time spent in boiling water depends greatly
on the specific string (composition, thickness)…
·
And there are risks:
o
If a cheap string – it’s not worth boiling. Go buy a new one.
o
Most strings should not be boiled more than
twice.
Okay – so admittedly, I was excited by this discovery - not
only because it’s awesome (and my guitar strings are 8 years old…yikes), but
because of the neat connection to tuning hearts.
Guitar strings are made of very different materials, but all
need to be stretched and put through tension to make beautiful music. Guitar strings can experience “boiling” for
better sound early in their lifetime, or guitar strings can go through that hot
water later in their lives to remove the built up oil and dirt…or both!
How like our hearts!
We humans are very different from each other, but our hearts
are all in need of a pull from the Savior.
And when we come to Him, Jesus “stretches” us in new experiences and
sometimes allows us to experience “boiling” in order to be better able to
praise Him. (and to match our sounds better
to His key J). You could say that when we go through trials,
He’s in the process of tuning our hearts – either for cleaning purposes or
better stretching purposes. AND – just
as such effort is not wasted on a cheap string, but on one with promise, Jesus
stretches and provides us with tension in our lives because He knows that
someday because of it, we will make beautiful music.
Have you ever thought about what heaven will be like? Imagine Christians gathered together from all
across the globe, having had their heart tuned by the Master Musician. Can you imagine millions of people praising
God together? We won’t all be the same
and lose our individuality. Even the
instruments in an orchestra are different.
But just as an orchestra tunes to the same note, the heavenly orchestra will
take their cue from the Master Musician and together produce richer, fuller
music.
It reminds me of a quote by C.S. Lewis:
“But it is also said, ‘To him that overcometh I will give a
white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving
he that receiveth it.’ [Revelation 2:17].
What can be more a man’s own than this new name which even in eternity
remains a secret between God and him?
And what shall we take this secrecy to mean? Surely,
that each of the redeemed shall forever know and praise some one aspect of the
Divine beauty better than any other creature can. Why else were individuals created, but that
God, loving all infinitely, should love each differently? And this difference, so far from impairing,
floods with meaning the love of all blessed creatures for one another, the
communion of the saints. If all experienced God in the same way
and returned to him an identical worship, the song of the church triumphant
would have no symphony, it would be like an orchestra in which all the
instruments played the same note.”
(from The Problem of Pain)
Heart tuning.
Instrument tuning. Boiling guitar
strings. Richer, purer music. Heavenly sounds.
I’m not quite sure that Robert Robinson had all this in mind
when penning those beautiful words. But I know that the next time I sing “Come
Thou Fount” I will have a better picture of what it means for the Lord to tune my
heart to sing His grace.
**As a side note – for those of you
thinking: “But it says make a joyful
noise! We don’t have to be in
tune!” Although Psalm 95 and 98 both say
to make a joyful noise, and God appreciates worship from our heart – the Bible
also says in Psalm 33:1-3 to sing joyfully and play skillfully. I really do think God appreciates excellence...
J
