Dressed at the Quarry

It's crazy how fast time flies by.  It's hard to believe that I'll be graduating from UGA in a matter of months.  I'm doing my student teaching this semester, ten weeks in a middle school and five in a high school, and I have to say that my time in the middle school has been incredible so far.  I'm learning a lot really quickly, and not just about music and teaching.  The Lord has given me a unique opportunity to grow in my knowledge of Him and my role in the plan He has for me in a "secular" public school setting.  It helps that, despite the polar differences between our personalities, my cooperating teacher and I share the same faith in our Savior.  It has been awesome getting to see practical applications of gospel-centered living in the education field, and God has been teaching me a lot of things about Himself and His Church through none other than music analogies.

One particular analogy that hit me today actually started to sneak into my mind last weekend.  My discipleship partner and I have been reading 1 Kings to become more familiar with history in the Old Testament, so on Saturday, I read chapter 6 on Solomon's work on the Jewish temple.  The part that stuck out to me as I was reading it was verse 7: "In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built."  What's interesting to me about this verse is that the image of the quiet temple site is like a picture of heaven: we are the stones and blocks found at the quarry, and only those that are dressed where they are found are suitable to be used in the building of the Temple, the Body of Christ.  Any stone that arrived at the temple site unprepared would have been considered useless for the work required of it and would have been discarded.  Likewise, the Day of Judgment will be too late for us to dress ourselves for the Lord's service.  Only those who are clothed with the righteousness of Christ here in this quarry of living stones called Earth will be approved for the high honor of being used as a building block in the Temple of our Lord.  All others will discarded at the Gate.  No work of sanctification will be done at Heaven's Gates.  No tool of trials will be heard there.

Now, this revelation was an exciting find as it is, but then Monday rolled around, and the lesson came up as a relevant topic in the day's band classes.  The bands are currently in preparation for Large Group Performance Evaluations (LGPE) and our spring concert.  As a result, there has been a process going on of refining the ensemble that will be going to LGPE.  This means that those students who do not know their music are being removed.  They still remain in the band and participate in class, but they are not included in the honor band that will be going to LGPE.  Each individual must know his or her part before the whole ensemble can rehearse together.  If some students are coming to rehearsal with wrong notes and rhythms, things which should be hashed out in their practicing at home, then the musical needs that are supposed to be addressed in group rehearsals cannot be appropriately addressed.  The sweetness of a cake cannot be adjusted if the baker is using salt instead of sugar.  Like the temple blocks, each musician must come to rehearsal with his or her part prepared if quality music is to be produced.  When each stone is prepared—when musician is prepared—only then can they be put together and decorated to make a presentable, appealing masterpiece.

This lesson was followed up on Thursday when one of the sixth grade classes repeatedly failed to keep a steady beat.  A question came to mind, to which several of the kids thought they had an answer, but they were trying to justify their thinking when no justification was available.  When the class failed to keep a steady beat, I turned the metronome on and put it on the overhead speakers; they were able to stay together then.  So the question arose: If you can stay together and keep a steady beat by listening, what happens when the beat you are listening to is not steady?  If I am asking you to get your steady beat by watching me, and nobody is watching me, how do any of you know that your tempo is the right tempo?  The right answer?  There's no way to know.  The only way is to watch the conductor.  But even if one person is watching and everyone is listening to that one person, how do you know that he or she is right?  Plus, how are you going to hear that one person over the deafening distractions caused by everyone else playing over that one person?  Again, these were rhetorical questions to get the students to realize that the only way to stay together at the right tempo is by watching the director.  They are not yet at the level at which they should be listening to each other.  At this point, my goal is almost to get them to ignore each other when they play so that they only hear what they are playing individually in relation to the tempo I am showing them.  Only when each and every individual has learned to watch and stay with the conductor will they be at the level at which they can properly listen to each other.  Only when each one knows his part and knows it in relation to what I dictate is the steady beat can they begin to make their notes and rhythms a musical part of the creative whole.

Now take that same lesson and imagine the band as the Church and the director as Jesus.  Jesus Himself said that "the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing" (John 5:19).  If we are all listening to each other to find the footsteps of God, how do we know that we are following the right path?  Even if one member of the Church is watching the Father and we listen to him, how do we know that he is pursuing holiness according to Scripture?  And how are we to clearly hear him over the distractions of this world and all the false gospels being preached?  The answer?  We cannot except by keeping our eyes on Christ.  And not just one of us or a few of us, but each and every single member of the Body must have his eyes on our heavenly Conductor.  And not all of us plays the same part in the divine orchestra.  We must each know our part, our role in God's plan for all of Creation, before the Holy Spirit can unite us and refine us into a harmony pleasing to the Lord.  Only then, when every individual has his eyes on the Cross, when we are each in a right relationship with God, can we listen to one another and come into the right relation with one another.  Only when every block is dressed to the proper specifications can every block be put together as a whole to create the Temple.  When the whole is not united to the One, the whole cannot truly be a whole.  When the whole is united to the One, only then are we wholly united as one.

It's funny: when God was sharing this revelation with me earlier today, I was starting to get a little annoyed because I was trying to read and couldn't concentrate because I kept thinking about all these cool lessons I was learning through my student teaching and all the lessons I wanted to teach my students.  Then this whole message solidified, and I had to stop out of sheer amazement at the way God uses everything to display His glory and His sovereign hand in all things.  I am so thankful that He has set me on this path as a music educator, with music and Scripture so finely tuned in perfect harmony for me to hear and see in what is to be my everyday profession.  May we all keep our eyes on our heavenly Conductor, and may we all play our parts for His glory alone, that we may be in perfect harmony with one another as a clear reflection of Him.