For Love of Guitar

Living in a country and a culture that is nothing like what you grew up in can give the Holy Spirit a lot to work with in terms of spiritual growth. The other day I was playing my guitar and I remember the very important incident that the Lord used in my life. This was the beginning of real change in an area of my walk with Christ as I was learning to adapt to living in a climate that I found very difficult and culture that I was foreign to. This happened in 1995 and I'm hoping it will encourage you with any struggle that you may have in your life…

Being that I am made of flesh and wrestle with that old nature like everyone else, victories are something I get excited about. There are so many little things about living here that are custom made to eat at a guy like me. Just the heat alone is something I really struggle with. Also many things in the Filipino culture are different than the Western culture I grew up in. They're not wrong, they are just different, but they are the kinds of things the enemy loves to use to irritate children of God and can cause them to blow their testimony. I got a chance to see what the Lord had been producing in me as I learn to deal with all those little irritants. My 1963 Guild guitar bit the dust. The humidity caused the bridge to lift off the top. I was recommended to a shop and with fear and trepidation I dropped the guitar off. Over the next month I would go to the shop and visit with the folks there as they were working on my guitar. I had been able to share with two of them about the love of Christ. When I received the call that they needed to see me, I thought maybe they had run into a different problem.

Little did I know…when I walked into the shop, this was the first statement I heard - “Sir, I want you to know that the person that worked on your guitar has been fired.” I felt my heart drop into my stomach. The individual who had worked on my guitar spilled acid on the top, leaving a burnt canal from the center to the bottom. Instead of stuffing that person into a guitar case, or screaming at the top of my lungs sarcastically “I LOVE THIS COUNTRY” or patting myself on the back for “suffering for Jesus” - I felt a great calm come over me as I remembered, precious to me though it was, my guitar was only a thing and the people in that shop were far more important to me. Two Scriptures really came to mind at that moment:

Romans 14:20 Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food. That includes guitars, no matter how valuable or precious they might be to the person that owns them.

James 1:20  for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. - I had been talking to these folks for weeks about how much God loved them and wanted them to be delivered from their sins. My anger would not communicate the love of Christ.

I left that shop very happy that all the little trials of frustration over this year had worked in me for more than hair loss. Next time you grit your teeth in frustration and think WHY?! - consider what God may be trying to accomplish. At that moment you may not see it, but if you hold on, at some other time the fruit will express itself.