Tune My Heart to Sing Thy Praise

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing has been one of my favorite hymns for as long as I can remember. I think that perhaps, lyrically, the first verse really appeals to musicians and other music lovers. "Tune my heart," "melodious sonnets sung by flaming tongues above."  Those lines summon up the passion music can elicit in us and provide an image that brings to mind the visions of Isaiah and Ezekiel and John. We can sing those songs and almost hear the brush of the wings of the creatures saying constantly, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty."


The other morning as I lay in bed hoping for inspiration to strike so that I could post something here in order to continue my press toward (nearly) 30 days of consistency on this blog, the phrase "tune my heart" grabbed my attention.  I suppose my overall understanding of that line has been as a plea for God's spirit to secure my attention, to help me conquer distraction, to focus on God's grace, and to make my heart inclined toward praise.  


But that morning, I suddenly wondered why I had never seen a connection between that phrase and the tuning up of a musical instrument before playing.  I am a violinist, and I would no more play the instrument without checking its tuning than I would go to the store in my pajamas. It's an essential part of preparation.


What is necessary for tuning to take place, and what is accomplished by the tuning process? First, tuning requires a standard.  I can take my violin and make it be in tune with itself.  I could then play something on it that would sound okay, but if I were to then attempt to play with another person, I would find out that I just wasn't quite right. The other players and I would not be producing something beautiful unless we were in tune with each other.


So a first step in having our hearts tuned for worship is having a standard.  A few Biblical standards jump to mind. "Be holy for I am holy." "Be perfect for your Father in heaven is perfect." "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." Our efforts to tune our lives and hearts to the standard of his example can only serve to make our corporate worship more wholehearted, more unified, and more beautiful in the sight of Him whom we are praising. Surely tuning our hearts by becoming more like Jesus makes us more eager to draw near to and build up the saints, to love one another and bear one another's burdens and "do life together".


So tuning requires that a standard be recognized.  It also requires that each individual instrument becomes aligned with that standard. How does that happen?  How does I tune my flat 430 Hz  A string so that it meets a standard 440 Hz?  Well, I stretch it.  I turn a peg, and that stretches the string so that it can sound the proper pitch. The tension on the string is increased.


That suggests to me that tuning my heart to sing His grace will result in times of stretching and increased tension. Unfortunately, sometimes I will resist this. I will be like the string whose peg slips back into its accustomed place, with the result that everything done on that string is just a little flat.  Things might not be awful, but they won't be what they could be. The stretching process is what brings me up to the standard. The pain of the stretching will be what increases faith, and what makes me constantly more aware of the streams of never-ceasing mercy, and recognizing that mercy more and more will certainly result in songs of loudest praise.