The Only True Middle C of Life

When I was young, I wanted to play the piano. However, we didn’t have room in our house for an instrument of that size, so I took up the flute. Thus, I knew very little about that mysterious keyboard that required more involved sheet music than what I learned to read.

I had heard of middle C but didn’t become curious about it until a few years ago when my Bible study group read Traveling Light by Max Lucado. In it, the author related this story that greatly impacted me:

When Lloyd Douglas, author of The Robe and other novels, attended college, he lived in a boardinghouse. A retired, wheelchair-bound music professor resided on the first floor. Each morning Douglas would stick his head in the door of the teacher’s apartment and ask the same question, “Well, what’s the good news?” The old man would pick up his tuning fork, tap it on the side of the wheelchair, and say, “That’s middle C! It was middle C yesterday; it will be middle C tomorrow; it will be middle C a thousand years from now. The tenor upstairs sings flat. The piano across the hall is out of tune, but, my friend, that is middle C.”*

What a perfect illustration of God’s immutability. Just like middle C sounding from the professor’s tuning fork, God will never change. We are reminded of this quality throughout the Bible: “You remain the same, and your years will never end” (Psalm 102:27); “I the Lord do not change” (Malachi 3:6); “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8); “The Father . . . does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17).

The fact that God never changes is the one solid reality we have to cling to in a world where nothing stays the same for long. And it provides many assurances for us.

Because God doesn’t change, I know I need never be concerned about losing his love. Moses said to the Israelites, “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands” (Deuteronomy 7:9). His love will take on different appearances. It may be celebratory one day and disciplinary the next, but his love for his followers will always be perfect. That means nothing I do or don’t do will ever lessen God’s love for me.

Because God doesn’t change, I know his Word never changes. The prophet Isaiah said, “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8). And Jesus himself said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35). God’s words are not temporary or tentative. That means I can trust every word of God to be as true and applicable today as when he first spoke it.

Because God doesn’t change, I know I will never be alone. We may lose friends to new interests or schedules or to a move. The death of family members and dear friends leave gaping holes in our hearts. But God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). That means, regardless of who is no longer in my life, I will always have the incomparable companionship of Jesus.

Because God doesn’t change, I know the rules of life will not change. Paul compares our earthly spiritual life to a foot race (1 Corinthians 9:24-27; 2 Timothy 4:7). The route of a race is established and clearly marked at the beginning, and the necessary apparel is specified. You would never be rerouted during a race or disqualified because someone decided to change the shoe requirements in the middle of the race. Our earthly race has been “marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1), and all instruction for righteous living is given to us in the Bible (2 Timothy 3:14-17). That means the way to my eternal life with God is always through Jesus, and my instruction book is always up to date.

Because God doesn’t change, I know he will always be the only true God. He told us through Isaiah, “This is what the Lord says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God” (Isaiah 44:6). He will not die never to live again, as other spiritual leaders. He is not like idols that “know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand” (Isaiah 44:18). God is “from everlasting to everlasting” (Psalm 90:2). That means I can experience wholeness by concentrating all my worship on the one—and only one—who always is.

These are just a few things I can be sure of because God never changes.

I loved this analogy between the music professor’s middle C tuning fork and God’s unchangeable quality so much that I looked through some music blogs to see if there might be other ways middle C relates to him. I made these discoveries:

• Middle C is named for its placement in the grand staff (in the very middle between the treble clef and bass clef); it is the “center of the musical universe.”  ~  Jesus is the center (creator, sustainer, ruler) of everything in heaven and earth (Colossians 1:16-18).
• Middle C “helps players position their hands correctly on the piano’s keyboard.”  ~  When Jesus is in first position, every other aspect of our life will fall into place (Matthew 6:33).
• Middle C is the “basic foundation note.”  ~  Jesus’ words are the foundation we are to build our lives on so we can withstand the storms of life (Matthew 7:24-25).
• Middle C is the “starting point for many piano songs.”  ~  Jesus puts a new song in our mouth (Psalm 40:3) and is the starting point for the greatest lifesong we will ever sing.
• Middle C is “home base.”  ~  Jesus is our refuge we can continually return to (Psalm 71:3), our home that always beckons and where the light is always in the window.

Only Jesus, constant and unwavering, is the perfect pitch of middle C that we can always count on in life. He will be the same tomorrow—and a thousand years from tomorrow—as he was yesterday.

*Source noted in Traveling Light: Donald W. McCullough, The Trivialization of God: The Dangerous Illusion of a Manageable Deity (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1995), 66.

Feature photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash