Give me Jesus

I gripped the splintering wood edges of a well-worn Steinway piano bench and squinted my eyes for the 4^th time at the opera score reduction propped on the rack in front of me. I mumbled something incoherent about tempo and tried not to let my inner anxiety about playing for a stranger leak into my face. Apparently it didn’t work.  The grinning African-American towering above me lightly tagged my shoulder and loudly snickered: ““What? You scared? Just PLAY!” I put on my big girl attitude and played—played for a singer like I never have before.

So began my first rehearsal with J. Warren Mitchell, budding opera star. I’ve followed vocalists from behind the piano for several years now, but this one was different.  From the first wave of sound that spilled out of his hefty frame, it was clear this man was not at his first rodeo. He took me along on a crazy ride of expression, completely controlled and deliberate, yet ever surprising.  One moment he’d be belting a high B so loud I couldn’t hear the chords I [hoped I] was pounding, and then in an instant, caress a note so sympathetically I instinctively held my breath.  When he made music, his beautiful soul was hanging out on the line for all to see, and as his accompanist, well, my job was to hang onto that line for dear life.

Four days and a couple performances later, we were still at it. Except this time, we were in a living room of a retired music professor, giving an in-house recital for, shall we say, some more refined members of society. After pretending to understand big wig occupations and surviving an attempt by my own dress to send me flying down the staircase, I was finally at the piano bench where I belonged. All of my abilities had been tested for this recital: how fast could I knead some Strauss into my brain with less than 3 hours to prepare and one chance to mess up? How carefully could I trace this passionate singer’s every breath?

Somehow, we clicked. It was incredible. Midway through the recital, he paused and thoughtfully faced the small crowd. He reflected on his past struggles to build his singing career, about how he had almost given up, but how at the last minute “preparation met opportunity.”  Off to Berlin to star in La Traviata this summer, he asked for their support. And then he asked for one more thing—that they see that I go on to hone my skills in graduate school. He said that I was gifted. That I could have a career.

Applause and kind words—what I had been hearing from respected musicians all week. These were very appreciated, of course, yet haunting.

As we plunged into the final piece, more than J’s warm tenor voice and the piano’s gooey harmony struck my soul. It was the very words of the spiritual he was washing over the room full of spellbound people: “You can have all this world, but give me Jesus.”

Give me Jesus. “In the morning when I rise,” or when “dark midnight was my cry,” give me Jesus.

Only minutes before, I had heard about “all this world.” That career—those hours upon hours of work, that never-ending pressure to be better, that possibility of fame. All about you, your gifts, and what makes you happy. The thrill of an audience and the satisfaction of accomplishment sound so nice—until the lights fade and everyone goes home and all that’s left is a crumpled paper program proving you performed. Sure, maybe a few people were touched. Maybe a tear or two was shed in a heightened moment of emotion. But what is that worth if in the end it didn’t give people hope that lasts—Jesus?

Is that what I really want above all else? Jesus and what matters to him? No one knows who first sang that soulful tune. Since it’s an African-American spiritual, I can imagine the circumstances. It likely first rose from sun-cooked cotton fields worked by an enslaved people. People who were mistreated, confined, and had to fight to retain even the most basic sense of their humanity. People who couldn’t read, and knew little of the God they so desperately clung to other than what was passed on to them. Ironically, it’s easiest to say “Give me Jesus” when life is ugly.  

I think Abraham Lincoln nailed it when he said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power” (Or perhaps success?). Looking back over my relatively short life, some of the worst times were actually the best times. Those times made it easy to say “Give me Jesus,” and still remind me not to forget Jesus when times are good. If you’re in a hard time right now, choose to see it as a blessing. Choose to see the hidden truths you can only learn from adversity.

And when times are good, or at least appear to be so, will you still say “Give me Jesus?” There’s nothing wrong with a career. There’s nothing wrong with success. But if it means I stop saying “Give me Jesus,” then it becomes dangerous. It’s too easy to forget what I have in Jesus—that through His sacrifice I have the very “hope of eternal life” (Titus 1:2). He became spiritually poor so that I could be made spiritually rich as God’s child through faith (2 Cor. 8:9, John 1:12). And He wants that love to inspire me, affect my priorities, and motivate my actions. That is where life’s true meaning is to be found. That is eternal.

“What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?”

—Jesus (Mark 8:36)