The following is in part responding to C.S. Lewis' The Weight of Glory. If you are a random passerby, take a minute, read the short essay. Feel free to comment, question, discuss, and/or debate.
Finding out that you are going to be the section leader for your instrument is exciting. Mainly, there is popularity and authority to gain, and to many people, those a very desirable payoffs. Compelling your section to get better through practice, focus while playing, get along with each other, etc. can be a taxing process, but that comes under the responsibility to use the popularity and authority you've gained in a productive and positive way. There are many things to do to affect/change the musicians of your section. Trying to stay virtuous, responsible, and humble when in such a position is hard. It is easy to slip into error in any of these categories, because with the burden of being a section leader, there is a natural desire to search for recognition. The recognition we earn from taking the burden we should be happy with. Searching after more recognition becomes sinful and even from an atheistic perspective, is being simply proud.
The reason why I bring up this example, is because it is no different than the spiritual burden of glory that we have all been given by God. Each one of you, the readers, have faced the same burdens in a far more significant form. When doing works of good for God, we are fulfilling his desire for us to be stewards of his creation. This task is not an easy one; it is not one for the fickle; it is not one for the haughty; yet it is one that God trusts us with. It is our duty as Christians to take up the full weight of glory and do so with humble hearts, with righteous goals, and with iron zeal. For in the same way that we are the sheep of God's flock, we should be virtuous shepherds guiding one another towards the pure blue sky.
3 comments:
This is a good example of the weight that God gives us. I am also a musician and I had never thought about it in this way. I think that its also important to note that, at the end of the year concert, when all the work your section and your music group has been doing pays off, the joy that you feel in being able to make music together greatly outstrips the feeling of pride you get when you know that you are greater than someone else. The band as a whole has done well, no one is greater than anyone else. In the same way, our equality in Christ is beautiful.
Good analogy. It is hard to imagine the weight of glory that God places upon us. But positions of power like that are a good example. It is a great honor but also a great responsibility that we must be diligent with.
@Corrie, That is a great addition! It's really an amazing feeling to be a part of something bigger like that when playing music together. In fact I wrote an essay about that musical feeling of playing with each other in performances/jam sessions. It is indeed beautiful, and another way to have community.
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