A Sense of Timing

 

 

“So, how did orchestra go?”  I asked my children.  Vincent, was an old hand, having played string bass the previous year and had little to say, but for Elliot and Victoria, it was as new as a fresh picked cherry tomato.

“It was OK,” Victoria said.  She is in the younger strings-only orchestra.  “Sometimes we played too fast and sometimes we played too slow.  Lots of the other players got lost and it made it hard for me to keep my place.”

“How was it for you, Elliot?”  Elliot plays trumpet and usually has a high level of confidence in his own abilities – even the amount of practicing doesn’t always quite match that confidence.

“The notes were EASY!”  Elliot said dramatically.  “I could have played them in my sleep.  The hard part was figuring out where to come in.  I think we got lost a few times, but there was only one time when Ms. DeCarlo (the conductor) called us out. ‘Where are my trumpets?  I need my trumpets!’”

“It seems like coming in on time is important,” I said.

“I’m not the ONLY one that has trouble coming in on time,” Elliot said.  “Lots of the other sections were having trouble too…”

Timing is everything, or so they say.  I have heard this said in relation to joke telling, where the pause between the end of the joke and the punchline makes a huge difference in how it is received by its audience.  It is true for an orchestra as well.

Even a small orchestra, like the Lynchburg Youth Symphony Orchestra, has 40 or 45 members.  Within that, there are different sections, each with a slightly different part to play.  It is not enough that they play all of the right notes, if those notes are not in sync with the other parts, the end result would sound more like a bunch of pots and pans dropped down an escalator than what Beethoven really intended.

One of the themes that stands out in the Gospel of John is Jesus’ impeccable sense of timing.  Early in the book, when His mother asked Him to take care of a lack of wine at a wedding, Jesus told her that “My hour has not yet come.” (John 2:4)  He mentioned this several other times through the book.

At some point, not long before His death, a few Greek-speaking Jews came, asking to see Jesus.  To this He responded, “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.”  He went on to indicate what that this glorification would come when He died. (John 12)

I read over these words and realize that God has all of the times and seasons of my life in His hands.  On my own, I would plant corn in August and lettuce in June and wonder why my harvest was so dismal in December.

Trust is not only knowing that God knows the "what" and "where" of my life.  Trust is knowing that God knows the “when” of my life too.  He will make sure that things happen right on track – far better than the trumpet section’s entrance into Saint-Saens’ Bacchanale at the Lynchburg Youth Symphony practice last week.