This time of year reminds me of when I got my first guitar. When I was 15 I landed a job raking leaves for my Great-Aunt Verna. Large yard + lots of large trees = lots of leaves. I lost track of how many bags I gathered together - but it was actually a very enjoyable, memorable job. It was cool, damp and dreary out the evenings and weekends I scratched their yard repeatedly coralling and coaxing the leaves together. Good thinking time I guess. And Aunt Verna was such a sweet lady, interrupting me frequently to give me hard candy and snacks.
The money she gave me I put towards my first guitar (along with other money I had saved from delivering flyers and Sears catalogues . . . and a donation from my dad to cover the rest). It was (and is) a Norman B-20. It was actually a demo model so I got a bit of a discount on it. But I've always been happy with it.
Eventually I put a pick-up in it. I went with a Fishman that cost nearly twice what the guitar cost - - figuring that I would play it plugged in more than not and maybe a good pick-up would make up for the entry level tonewoods.
When I was in Bible College I lent it to another student who needed a guitar for their internship. After his internship I lost touch with him, and soon found out he had moved to Denver. (!!!) For a while it seemed like it was gone for good. Eventually I tracked him down - - he told me that he had left it behind at the house he had boarded at in Ottawa (which happened to be a five minute bike ride away from my house at the time). After a year apart - I was reunited with my Norman.
About a month ago I played electric guitar at OVPC youth camp. At our first sound check, something weird happened and Ben (Wright's) guitar went silent. I had my Norman there so Ben used it for the rest of our practice and the week of services.
After I got it back - - - something was different. Ben will say whatever (you might too) - but after a week in his hands leading youth in worshiping the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - it has sang out sweeter and more willingly in every church service I've played it in since.
Something rubbed off on it.
Similarly: I've heard of preachers who have visited the churches and pulpits of the great preachers of church history. The stories go: when no one is around they rub themselves on the pulpit hoping to glean any anointing that may still reside in it.
There's a lot we don't know with certainty about the spiritual realm (one example: the organics and fine details of how anointings from God work and whatnot). Maybe it's God's protection - maybe he doesn't allow perfect understanding of such things, otherwise with understanding we might claim control of something we have no right to.
A lot of times the Holy Spirit helps us in a variety of ways to understand complex situations. And sometimes we have hunches about what's "really" happening in the spiritual realm. But a lot of times we still see through a glass . . . darkly. There are scenarios and seasons of life that will leave our heads spinning.
But we're not called to perfect understanding and expertise in the realm of the S/spirit (that goes for principalities, powers and authorities too). We're not called to be masters of divinity, but to be mastered by divinity.
SO, I don't know how it all works, but my prayer: God, make me rubby. That something of You would rub off of me. I'll be a sweet guitar (like an ES-335) in Your hands ringing out (through an AC-30) especially sweet chords and legato lines of your choosing (maybe we could put some delay and reverb on there too).
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