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The Reason for Our Gifts
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© by John Fischer for CCM Magazine, September, 2000 issue. |
Van Morrison once said, “Music is spiritual; the music business is not.” That business can cloud the motives equally of those who have “made it” and those who have not. We constantly need to be reminded of what is truly spiritual about music, and it might come as a surprise to some to discover that it isn’t primarily an issue of content.
A recent e-mail from a regular reader of CCM Magazine named Brian got my attention. On this subject I have chosen to include some of its content in this article because I believe it may be helpful to many other readers who play, sing or write music but will never find their names or pictures on these pages.
“It’s not about ‘making it’ or even ministry,” Brian writes. “It’s about trying to give with this gift that the Spirit of God has given me. This gift I don’t understand—that I sometimes don’t even want. This gift that I love and sometimes ignore. This gift that scares me and gives me joy, just like God Himself.”
Here’s a guy who plays local coffeehouses in and outside the church and admits to being tempted with disappointment over not being more widely known. But he continues to perform, knowing he is not the source of his talent in the first place. “Not that [I am] ‘pure’ about it. If somehow heard my music and offered me a chance to record it, I’d probably be interested and take a shot... But I play now because of the responsibility of having this gift. Because the weight of the songs I have written, but never played, makes me wonder what I am writing for, if not to be heard.” So he finds a place to be heard and offers what he has. He doesn’t wait for the contract, he doesn’t wait to be discovered, he doesn’t wait to be asked; he just plays, and when he does, he plays to please God.
“I was hiding my songs. I still do sometimes. And God still speaks to me to remind me that He is pleased when I play my music. Who needs any other reason?”
He’s right. No one needs any other reason for using their gift than the simple truth that it has been entrusted to them by God, and a gift is never realized until it is used. If we think a gift is given for our benefit—to give us worth, to cause us to shine—then we are indulging in wrong thinking. Gifts are never given for the sake of the gifted; they are given for the sake of others, and ultimately, for God. Gifts are given to be given away, and it all circles back to the Giver.
Remember Eric Liddle in the movie Chariots of Fire who ran for one reason—to bring God pleasure? This is the way God’s gifts work. When we put them to use with God in mind, they become a sweet savor to Him from which others benefit. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:15 that we are an aroma of Christ to God. You could say God smells Himself in the world through the gift of Christ who has been planted in us by the Holy Spirit, and this brings Him pleasure.
A good idea for us all, then, would be to periodically ask, “Why am I playing?” However we answer the question, the underlying nature of God’s giftedness, and our response to it, will give meaning to whatever we do and wherever we do it.
In his e-mail Brian refers to a scene from the movie Back to the Future, in which the main character Marty (Michael J. Fox) is talking to his father about a sheaf of short stories he never showed to anyone because... well... what if they didn’t like them? “But what if they do?” Marty says. In other words, how will you know unless you try?
We all have some place we can use our talents. It may not be as lofty a place as we had in mind, but that shouldn’t matter. If the pleasure is in the playing, then the playing itself legitimizes the talent. We play, write, sing or however we use our own unique gifts to feel God’s pleasure. That should be enough for anyone, whether we are in a coffeehouse or Carnegie Hall.
Perhaps the problem is that so much of what we end up focusing on from an industry standpoint has to do with “making it” in the music business. Success is too often made equivalent to a contract, a tour and a major marketing push. With so much talent and so few able to actually “make it” in those terms, the value and importance of the gift is often diminished when that goal is not realized. What this reader has wisely pointed out to all of us is that the recognition and use of the gift is reward enough.
Maybe what is needed is a new definition for “making it.” If “making it” dropped its implications of arriving at a point of notoriety, and simply meant to make the music and share the music as a fulfillment of the gift, then regardless of whether your name shows up here, or anywhere else for that matter, in the eyes of the Giver and the mind and heart of anyone who listens, you’ve already made it.
(Thanks to Brian Sullivan of North Salem, N.Y., for his insightful comments.)
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