I love old guitars. What can I say? I just love old guitars!
A bunch of years back, we were singing in a really remote, fly-in community and I couldn't believe what I saw hanging on a friend's back wall. It was a 1956 Gibson ES125-a collector's classic that was a few years older than me! I'd never played one before, and I was just wowed by this half-century-old guitar!! I was even more speechless when my friend gifted it to me!
Two weeks later, I was getting the Old Gibson ready to go to work-new strings, new strap, new case . . . Oh yeah, we got ready for that next gig! I remember my disappointment when I couldn't get any good sound out of it!
It wouldn't stay in tune, the 1956 electronics sounded muddy and the semi-ancient wood didn't have that resonance I was expecting. I EQed the amp to where I could finally play, but what a struggle to just get that guitar to sound average!
I found out from another collector what the problem was. For 35 years, the ES125 had hung on the wall-unplayed! To sound good, a guitar has to be played! The music gets into the wood. This beauty had potential that had never been tapped. It looked awesome, but was useless when it came to making music.
Many folks can identify with that guitar. They may be gifted, they may have tons of potential, they may look like the next Lebron or Gretzky, they may sound like the next John Fogarty . . . but they never do anything with what they've been given. They just sit on it. The potential is there but they're finding some reason to just waste it.
In Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, the Bible talks about how God entrusts us with spiritual gifts. These are what we're given to serve our Creator with and to become what He designed us to be. We are the ones who choose what we do with those gifts. We can honour Jesus with the our choices or we can just waste that gift.
That old guitar could have made beautiful music, but it never did. You too have giftedness and potential. What are you doing with it?
