Jeremiah 31

I have been playing the piano for almost 40 years. I’m 43. That means I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t play the piano. There is something warm and comforting about that, and as you may imagine, I have a very special love for the greatest of all stringed instruments.

The piano wasn’t my first instrument, however. The violin was. I started Suzuki violin when I was three, but soon after, I was coming home from those lessons and playing my violin songs on the piano. I guess I was just born to play the piano. Ever since those early days, I have been able to play something just by listening to it. (True story: My brother used to make me play the theme song to the television show Airwolf so he could have background music while he “flew” his helicopters around the living room.)

After many years of lessons with a fantastic piano teacher, I also developed the ability to read music. Thus, I can sight read music, “play by ear,” play from a lead sheet, and even improvise. In short, I can pretty much do anything there is to do with a piano, and I frequently have the occasion to thank God for the huge blessing of music He placed in my heart.

Several years ago, when I worked as a musician in a large church, I began teaching piano lessons to some of the kids in the church. It was such a wonderful and eye-opening experience for me, taking these children through the “rules” of music one step at a time, building one skill at a time. Of course, I knew all these “rules.” I knew all the relationships of notes and chords and keys, but it had been many, many years since I had thought about them.

One day, after our contemporary service at church (where I quite frequently “rocked out” the piano), one of my students came up to the piano and asked to see the music. I showed him the lead sheet, which had the single melody line with chords written above. He looked very confused for a moment, and then I realized that he had expected there to be about five billion notes on the page. He thought I was reading the music I had just played.

“How did you do that?” he asked.

I shrugged my shoulders and laughed. “I don’t know,” I said.

“Can you teach me to play like that?”

“No,” I said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how I do it. I just do it.”

I have seen books and programs purporting to teach improvisation, so I know there are resources available. But I wonder if anyone who improvises because their brains have been taught the “rules of improvisation” can truly make music. Maybe so. But I would guess that, more often than not, the true virtuosos—the ones who can inspire and thrill with music—are those who don’t have the rules of music on the brain when they play. In fact, they are probably those who don’t think about music at all when they play.

What does this have to do with Jeremiah 31?

“‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,’ declares the Lord. “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, “Know the Lord,” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,’ declares the Lord.” (vs 31-34)

God wants spiritual virtuosos. The people He’s describing here are people who make music with their lives because they aren’t obsessed about the rules. It doesn’t mean that the Law doesn’t govern their lives—it does, just as surely as improvised music is still governed by the fundamental rules of music. The people He’s describing here are people who are different on the inside. They are people who don’t have to be taught to “play like that” because they just do it. They may not know how they do it, but they do.

The people God’s describing here remind me of those righteous people Jesus described who were surprised to learn that they had served God: “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?” (Matt 25:37-39) These people hadn’t done these good deeds because they were trying “to live as Christians should.” They did these good deeds because it’s who they were inside. They weren’t “trying” to do good; they just did it.

Our sinful hearts don’t know how to make spiritual music. And we can take the lessons and learn the rules and, perhaps, become very good technicians. But God doesn’t want spiritual technicians; He wants spiritual virtuosos. He wants to give us a brand-new heart that knows how to improvise love without thinking about it. He wants our very lives to make spiritual music that will inspire and thrill those who hear it. He wants to put His law in our minds and write it on our hearts.

So, stop thinking about the rules. It’s much more fun to improvise.

God can give you the gift of playing like that, and He wants to!