Ryan's Ramblings

[On this New Year’s Eve, I wanted to share a piece I wrote years ago. May it be an encouragement as you step into the new year.]

My heart is steadfast, O God; I will sing and make music with all my soul. —Psalm 108:1 (NIV)

There are some things you understand early in life because someone tells you. And there are other things you understand later—not because they are new, but because you’ve lived long enough to hear them differently.

One of those for me is a simple phrase: It’s about the music.

That line comes from the movie School of Rock. Years ago, when our kids were younger we watched that silly movie again and again—laughing every time like it was the first. In a house of two teachers and four musicians, the story struck a familiar chord.

In one scene, Dewey Finn—played with over-the-top brilliance by Jack Black—walks into band practice only to discover he’s been voted out of the band. His excess, his passion, his twenty-minute guitar solos no longer serve the band’s goals. They want success. Stardom. The $20,000 grand prize in the Battle of the Bands.

Dewey is incredulous. With wild eyes and flying hair, he finally blurts out, “You guys just don’t get it. It’s not about the money… it’s about the music!”

At the time, it was funny. Years later, it’s instructive.

I didn’t realize how deeply those words had settled in me until I found myself repeating them to my twelve-year-old daughter, Becca, just minutes before her piano recital. She was preparing to play eight pages of Chopin—by memory, under bright lights, in front of a crowd. I could see the anxiety rising as she worried about getting it right.

I pulled her aside and put my arm around her shoulders.

“Becca,” I said, “you’ve done the work. You’ve practiced. You have the ability. You’ve played this beautifully at home many times. You have nothing to prove—to me, your mom, or yourself. This recital doesn’t define you. It isn’t even about you or your performance… it’s about the music.”

Something in her softened. A small smile appeared.

“You know the music,” I said. “Now let it flow through you. Play it from your heart. Enjoy it. Let its beauty ring out and touch the audience.”

Only later did I realize I was speaking to myself as much as to her.

Sitting in the audience that evening, listening to student after student play, tears surprised me. Amid Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert, and even a simple “London Bridge” from the Beginners Piano Book, I found myself hearing something beneath the notes.

The melody I heard was the music of our lives.

It was the sound of practice and discipline. Repetitious scales. Missed notes. Forgotten stanzas. Groans squeezed between school, chores, and homework. Made-up songs and playful detours—small escapes from the work that needed to be done.

I looked around the room and thought about the parents and grandparents who had heard these same pieces at home—out of tempo, interrupted by missed notes and halting starts, again and again. And it struck me: this was the real music. Not the recital, but the daily, faithful playing of it.

Watching Becca at the piano, I found myself holding my breath. My hands clenched at every falter—not in disappointment, but in hope—hoping she wouldn’t let a moment derail the whole. And as she played, I realized how much of life is lived this way: moving forward, note by note, learning not to stop when we stumble.

In my heart, I found myself whispering encouragement—

Keep going.

Don’t be discouraged.

Move through the bauble.

Let it ring.

When she finished, her smile said everything. And as I applauded, a quiet recognition surfaced:

Life is rarely a single, defining performance. It is far more often a long season of practice.

Somewhere along the way, many of us are taught—explicitly or not—that life is all about the recital. The final presentation. The flawless execution. The grand prize. But the longer you live, the more you realize how much of life happens between the performances.

In God the Father’s eyes—or ears—it has always been about the music. The whole song. The daily faithfulness. The missed notes. The perseverance. The grace that keeps us playing even when the pages are long and the hands are tired.

God is not waiting for the final chord to listen. He has been present for the practice all along.

***

At the end of Becca’s recital, parents, students, grandparents, brothers, and sisters stayed to celebrate with punch and cookies. Congratulations were offered. The room filled with hugs, laughter, reflections, and enormous sighs of relief.

Becca stood across the room talking with friends. In one arm she held a bouquet of roses I had given her; in the other, a cup of red punch. She was smiling—a smile of relief and satisfaction after a job well done. I made my way over, put my arm around her waist, pulled her close, and told her she had done wonderfully.

“Thanks, Dad, but I did have a few mess-ups,” she said.

“Yes,” I replied, “but they were practically unnoticeable—you just moved right through them.”

Then I asked, “What was going through your mind when you were up there playing?”

She smiled and said, “I just kept going, knowing that you and Mom were out there listening. And at one point—during one of my favorite parts—I thought, it’s not about me, it’s about the music. So I just played the music.”

With that, she slipped away to rejoin her friends.

Standing there alone, holding an empty plastic punch cup, I realized something I hadn’t fully named before.

Those quiet words I had whispered in my heart as I watched Becca:

Keep going.

Don’t be discouraged.

Move through the bauble.

Let it ring.

They were not just the words of a father to his daughter. They were the words of The Father to me. And to all of us.

So I pray—for you and for me.

Father, thank You for the music of life. Help me remain faithful through the hard measures. Help me enjoy the parts that still sing. And remind me—again and again—that it’s not about me. It’s about the music—Your music.

You are the composer.

And by grace, You are beautifully at work in the song of our lives.