Barred from Better Things

When I first picked up the guitar my learning curve spiked like nothing else I've ever tried to teach myself. All of those long years of slaving over the piano translated into a few weeks of dinking around on my Christmas guitar, and viola! I played a stringed instrument!

It wasn't long before I hit my first wall in learning guitar: the barre chords. A barre chord is where you basically make a bar with your pointer finger and press down on all the strings at the same time while forming the chord with your other fingers. Its super hard and requires that you push your pointer down so firmly that you get nice little purple indents where your poor finger has attempted to subdue the metal. While I desperately wanted to play in the key of D, a B minor chord in that sequence was just way too much trouble. There had to be some way around those horrid barre chords.

Turns out there is a way out of barre chords. There is a whole load of trick chords I figured out to get around becoming a human capo, and I quickly moved on; incorporating these cheats into my style. It worked. I have played the guitar for almost six years and have never played a barre chord in front of anyone.

So the other night Justin and I were praying and seeking Jesus' heart, and I picked up the guitar and started playing this worship song. As we were worshipping, I asked the Lord to search me out and show me how I have let a sense of unrest creep into my heart. I tried to focus on listening to God but I kept getting distracted by what I was playing.

Something didn't sound right.

The song was in the key of D, and I was using one of my cheat chords to play the B minor. The sound was thin, and not expressing the depth of the minor chord well. Every time I came to the B minor I felt like the song was missing out on a level of passion that I could bring musically. In this song, the cheat chord could not replace the fullness of a barre chord.

It was then that the Lord impressed upon my heart that ingrained habits of cutting corners was keeping me from experiencing depth. By avoiding the barre chords I was actually hindering the worship! I felt like God was saying that my lack of passion has been the result of taking the easy road. I've been cutting corners, like using assigned Bible reading for classes a my time with Jesus, and its been dry. In that moment, my hand literally dropped off of the neck of the guitar as I recognized that God was communicating profoundly through this silly habit of cheating on chords.

Barre chords are hard. They hurt. Bruised fingers don't feel good. But a fuller sound and a basic skill in guitar that can open up new doors is not worth missing out on! I am applying myself to play barre chords, to do the hard thing, and I'm asking for the accountability I need to break out of cutting corners. Taking the easy way isn't doing me any favors, it's really just barring me from better things.