After the meeting I wanted to ask the girl if she took voice lessons, and if not to encourage her to get them if her parents could afford it. Then I wondered how this might sound to an eleven-year-old. Would she think I was suggesting lessons because her voice was not very good, the way we suggest people get lessons to learn a language they can’t speak or to prepare for a test they don’t expect to do well on? Or would she have the maturity and experience to take such a suggestion as a compliment, a statement of my confidence in her talent and potential?
Which got me wondering: Does God run the same risk when He undertakes our spiritual training – the risk that we will see His tutoring hand in our lives as a sign that He thinks we are deficient, not a sign of His confidence in our spiritual talent and potential? When He invites me to the hard lessons of disease or disaster, failure or loss, I too often assume (as I worried my young musician friend would) that His offer of “lessons” means that I am deficient, unprepared, and not expected to do well – when perhaps the “music” I’ve been handed is simply to help me develop my truest voice, even if the score is unfamiliar or out of my current range.
Of course, an eleven-year-old is unlikely to reach her mature musical potential without practice, guidance, and difficult songs to master. Lessons will benefit her in that pursuit, as they will benefit me in my quest for spiritual maturity. God has paid the full price to assure lessons for everyone, honed to develop our spiritual talents and gifts and not just to correct the deficiencies we more readily see. I suppose He delights to see what music we will make, and even to sing with us, adding His rich baritone – neither faltering nor overpowering – to our song.