I closed YouTube and sighed: that video recording was not my best playing and I was ashamed. I felt tense inside: embarrassed that we’d had such good recording engineers, frustrated with myself for not having practised more, worried about what others would think when they watched it, worried that it wouldn’t even be shared because it wasn’t good enough. I felt busy inside, imagining how I might be able to justify myself, playing out in my mind the conversations I would have that would prevent others thinking badly of me.
Lacking peace
Being a musician can make it easy to lack peace. It sounds obvious, but if you are a performer, people see and hear you! And that creates all sorts of opportunities for anxiety. In many degrees and many jobs, it is only really you and your tutors or line manager who know how you’re doing. But when I play the oboe, not only do the audience hear everything, so do my colleagues! My intonation, my tone, my ensemble, my stylistic approach, my tonguing - it’s all on show. More than that, it will consciously or subconsciously be contributing to how others see me as a musician and how likely they are to recommend me to others. If those opinions and outcomes rule me, then peace is elusive.
When is it for you that being on show can stir up anxious thoughts?
- Playing in a masterclass?
- Thinking about which desk you’ll be on?
And then there’s the future…
- Will I get a job?
- If I’m freelance, will I get any work?
- Will I get enough work?
- What if I don’t?
- How do I make it?
- What if that gig was the one that was going to lead somewhere and now I’ve messed it up/can’t make it/it’s been cancelled?
These thoughts can leave us restless, anxious, tense.
But Jesus promises peace. What does that look like? And how do we get there?
The singer with peace
We’re going to hear the song of someone who has peace. Listen in…
Psalm 131
A song of ascents. Of David.
1 My heart is not proud, Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
2 But I have calmed and quietened myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.
3 Israel, put your hope in the Lord
both now and for evermore.
Short and sweet. And extraordinary. Let’s explore it.
Verse 1
My heart is not proud, Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
Here we see the result before we learn the cause. And the result is a quiet heart, a person with peace.
Imagine the opposite for a moment:
...My heart is proud, self,
I continually look down on and despise others.
My heart is busy, frantically trying to know all the details of everything, grasping for control of my life, my ambitions, my career, where this commission will lead…
This opposite picture is a noisy heart. It is proud, concerned primarily about itself and serving its own ends. And pride affects relationships with others. It makes everything a comparison game, finding ways to look down at others with ‘haughty eyes’. When our hearts are proud, we are desperate to climb the ladders of our aspirations or our most cherished qualities, to be further up than others – temptations that are all too present in the performance-centred world of music.
'The professor praised my tone in front of everyone!' I climb up the ladder of achievement and look down at the others.
'She got booked for that gig instead of me.' I crash down that ladder and either feel bitter, or build another ladder, maybe one that values ‘succeeding by my own hard work’. I might tell myself, ‘she’s just a favourite’, and I can place her below me on the ladder, and I am back with the proud heart and haughty eyes.
Verse 2
But I have calmed and quietened myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.
But the psalmist says that instead of rushing after all those things, he’s ‘calmed and quietened’ himself. He has abandoned the ladders and turned towards something else, or rather someone else, and the turbulent thoughts have subsided. He describes this situation with a beautiful picture: imagine a four-year-old curled up on her mother’s lap. Old enough not to squirm around and fuss for milk or anything else she might want, old enough to trust that she can ask when she needs to. And young enough to be completely content in that snuggle, a refuge from everything else – from the busyness, the difficulties, the unknown.
Verse 3
Israel, put your hope in the Lord
both now and for evermore.
Here the psalmist makes explicit the source of his hope: the LORD. It is the LORD in whose lap he is safely snuggled. It is the LORD whom he completely trusts to handle every aspect of his circumstances.
And he sings to exhort all God’s people to do the same:
- ‘Israel, put your hope in the LORD’
- ‘Brothers and sisters, put your hope in the LORD’
- ‘Katie, put your hope in the LORD’.
- ‘Musicians who follow Jesus, put your hope in the LORD!’
And we know so much about this Lord, so much to put our hope in:
- Hope in the One who said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you’
- Hope in the One who said, ‘Peace I give you’
- Hope in the One who holds our future completely
- Hope in the One who has justified us and before whom we never have to justify ourselves
- Hope in the One whose approval we always have through Jesus
- Hope in the One who died for you so you could be free and free to love Him
- Hope in the One who will return one day in glory and make everything right
This psalm was first sung by David, God’s King, and ‘a man after His own heart’. It is ultimately sung by Jesus, God’s true King – His life was totally characterised by this quiet trust and peace. And through Him, we can make this psalm our own. As we pray it, we’re learning peace from Jesus Himself.
Through Jesus, we can make this psalm our own
Joining in the song
Let’s work our way back up through Psalm 131 and ask God that He might give us His peace. I’d love you to take this opportunity to think about where in your life you feel like peace is missing, and let Jesus teach you His peace as we do this. Take your time.
Verse 3
Name some promises of God that are precious to you. Write them down. Speak them to the Lord.
Name the thoughts swirling in your mind and heart. Ask Him to help you put your hope in Him in all these situations.
Verse 2
Speak also to yourself! Talk to yourself about how safe you are because God is your Father. Remind yourself that He knows the future. Tell yourself that He is with you right now, and is the refuge, the hiding place from all the hard things that come at us.
In the 1700s, Katarina von Schlegel wrote a hymn influenced by this psalm, Be still, my soul, now mostly commonly sung to the tune from Sibelius’s Finlandia. I’ve put the lyrics at the bottom of this article - you might like to use them to speak or sing to yourself when you feel the noisiness rising inside.
Verse 1
Pray for the fruit that comes from a peaceful and quiet heart: not pride and haughtiness, but rather, relating to God and other people rightly. Ask God that this verse would be true of you.
The wonderful thing is that a peaceful heart has space for more fruit. As the pre-rehearsal cacophony dies down, the clear 'A' of the oboe can be heard and the strings can be re-tuned. As our noisy hearts become quiet and the dust settles from the storms we stir up in our minds, we can hear and see God, ourselves, and others more clearly and rightly. Here’s one example: when we’re not worried about where a gig will lead, we have space to think, ‘Who would Jesus have me speak to here today? Who’s on the margins that I could reach out to? Who can I encourage? How can I best contribute musically?’
A peaceful heart has space for more fruit
Wrapping things up
In God’s wonderful provision, the same day I had watched that YouTube video, I had an email from Tom Chevis (Music Network co-ordinator) asking me to write this article. It brought the situation into sharp focus for me: I lacked peace. I knew Jesus offers peace. The knowledge was there in my head, but right then I was not letting it make a difference to my heart. If I really believed that Jesus’s peace was available to me in that moment, I had to seek Him and let Him change my heart. And graciously, He did. I repented of my lust for others’ approval and my desire to justify myself, and asked Him to help me see more of Jesus and His perspective. I asked for His help to resist the temptation to send messages or to go into our next rehearsal with words that attempted to justify my playing. I remembered and reminded myself how secure I am with Jesus, and my noisy heart quietened.
I often feel worlds away from where the psalmist is. I desperately need Jesus to help me receive the peace that He freely gives. But He really does continue to help me as I face different situations, and my heart’s noisy, proud responses to them.
There will always be circumstances that tempt us towards noisy hearts. Yes, there are particular struggles as musicians, and additional struggles for students looking to go into music performance. But don’t wait for circumstances to change to bring quiet to your heart - it won’t work!
Jesus offers peace right now.
My prayer is that you would find it now, and learn how to keep receiving it whatever the next month, year, decade and the rest of your life brings to you, or as the psalmist says, ‘both now and forevermore’!
_______________________________________________________________________________________
I am heavily indebted to David Powlison’s article ‘Peace, be still’, which I highly recommend for a fuller exploration of Psalm 131.
‘Peace, be still’ (Powlison, David), Journal of Biblical Counselling, Volume 18 Number 3 (2000), pp1-10.
Appendix: Be still, my soul
Be still, my soul; the Lord is on thy side;
bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
in every change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; thy best, thy heav'nly Friend
through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
Be still, my soul; thy God doth undertake
to guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
all now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul; the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.
Be still, my soul; when dearest friends depart,
and all is darkened in the veil of tears,
then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,
who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.
Be still, my soul; thy Jesus can repay
from His own fullness all He takes away.
Be still, my soul; the hour is hast'ning on
when we shall be forever with the Lord,
when disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul; when change and tears are past,
all safe and blessed we shall meet at last.
