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Dalton
Roberts |
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Naman Crowe sent me an email saying, “Life can be like a guitar. We all get out of tune at times, even pop a string now and then.” What an interesting way to look at life! I know from experience it is true. Once when I was in a down time I asked my mother for help and she said, “Son, what’s the first thing you do when you pick up your guitar?” I told her I checked to see if it was in tune and she said, “I know. And if you’ll allow the Lord to tune you up, you will overcome this problem you now face.” Thinking of a guitar, I see the bottom E-string is the smallest but it stands for excitement and that is not a small matter in our lives. Most guitarists tune all the other strings by the bottom E. So we need to keep our excitement each day to stay in tune. You say, “Oh, you don’t know what a drag my job is or you would know I cannot possibly be excited in the morning when I go to work.” Yes I do know perfectly well how you feel because I have had jobs that made me search them for something exciting. The harder it is to find something exciting about a job, the more important it is to keep searching until you find it. We will find one exciting task or at least one exciting person there if we will simply set aside our totally negative mindset and look for it. The second string (B) stands for bravery. You don’t need to have Medal of Honor bravery. You only need enough for the day. Thank goodness we only have to live one day at a time. There are times when it is not easy to find even one of the millions of good reasons to live but we can swing it for one tiny day. The third string (G) stands for gratitude. How many times when we get persimmon-mouthed do we sweeten our attitude by remembering all the reasons we have to be grateful? The fourth string (D) stands for daring. Those who succeed often point back to the time they dared to take one risk. The most important judgment we make is knowing the difference between daring and recklessness. The daring look at all the risks before leaping and the reckless just leap. The fifth string (A) stands for appreciation. There is a difference between gratitude and appreciation. Gratitude comes from the inner grin of counting blessings and appreciation comes from the spiritual exercise of weighing value. How rich our life becomes when we cultivate the habit of weighing the worth of people and events. The 6th string (E again) stands for endurance. There is a short verse in Ephesians that simply says, “Having done all, stand.” Everyone faces tunnels, long stretches of bad roads through barren deserts and times of blinding rain. Yes, there are times we get through by simply enduring, putting one foot in front of the other. These are times when we break a string on the guitar of life and cannot make music until we are able to replace and retune it. Even the cheapest guitars can become dear to you. I learned to play on a warped old Stella. I am now having an identical old Stella restored just for old times sake. Don’t block out of your memory the hard years of your life. You were learning something needed for your ultimate success. Remember, too that even one out-of-tune string makes the whole guitar sound out of tune. Keep balance. Check each string often. Once we get in tune, we have this need to be with others who are in tune and make some music. That’s why we are always looking around for a good jam session. If you find one, be sure and call me.
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