Elevator Music

Have you ever found yourself in an elevator waiting to reach your floor when all of the sudden, your favorite song comes on over the tiny speaker and you decide to hit a few more floors before you leave so you can finish the song?

No? Me either.

The truth is, nobody really cares abut elevator music. Its’ sole purpose is to fill dead silence. It never sounds like anything anybody would really listen to. When I think of elevator music, I usually think of somebody who got fired from their job as a Ringtone composer and was now pretending to be Kenny G.

It kind of makes me wonder about the people who make elevator music. I mean, did they intentionally set out to make music for people to only hear for the few seconds they were in transit? Or did they set out to make truly great music that just ended up in an elevator? I don’t know much about the elevator music business, but I am sure it definitely has its ups and downs. Get it? “Ups and Downs”? Like in an elevator? Never mind.

I wonder if whoever composed these elevator masterpieces was in reality a very passionate musician. What if they were the kind of musician who dedicates their whole life to their craft and practices for hours upon hours a day? What if this tune that almost went unnoticed while I was traveling in an elevator came to this musician in a dream? What if he was up all night composing what he knew would be a masterpiece? What if he poured his heart and soul into his work and the only place that would accept him was an elevator?

It all leads to the question that I have had scribbled to a Post-It note stuck to my wall and running through my brain for the past couple weeks: “What happens when your passion amounts to nothing?”

I have a confession to make. I usually begin my blogs with no idea of how I will end them. I just start writing and eventually my thoughts organize themselves into something logical and I figure out the answer to whatever I was asking before I hit publish.  That is how I began this one; hoping that by writing I would be able to finally figure out the question that I have read every morning posted on my wall.

I am already 405 words into this post and I still have no idea what the answer to this question is.

What does happen when my passion amounts to nothing?

What if nobody ever read a single thing I wrote? What if I never saw one person come to know God through anything I did? What if I get into full-time ministry and realize I can’t do it and everything I have done my whole life amounts to nothing?

I thought I was asking God this question, but I think He is asking me.

If my passions amount to nothing, does that change who God is?

If my passions amount to nothing, does that change who I am?

Is my whole perception of who God is and who I am wrapped up completely in seeing physical results?

Really I have to ask myself, “Am I passionate about God himself, or am I passionate about being recognized for being passionate about God?”

If I am passionate about God then it shouldn’t matter if what I pour my life into becomes nothing in the eyes of the world.

I am here in life doing what I do because I want it to amount to something. Everything we do is for that very hope. That is why people go to college and start families and go after the best jobs. That is why we are supposed to do well in school and make good decisions, we want it to amount to something. Nobody intentionally plans to be underappreciated and over looked. Everyone aims for Billboard Top 20, not the tiny speaker in an elevator.

I want to live a life that doesn’t revolve around me trying to find approval and self worth. I want to live a life that isn’t all about impressing people. I want to be OK knowing my greatest efforts may end up in a an elevator. I don’t pretend to know what I am doing or how I am going to get there, I just know that I want to live for more than an early retirement. I am living for  a heavenly retirement, because that is where my citizenship lies.

It is a good thing we are not waiting to stand before God and hear him say, “Well done my good and successful servant;” we wait to hear Him call us faithful.