An Instrument of Righteousness

My recent experiences in learning to play the violin can, I think, be paralleled with my recent experiences in growing in my walk with the Lord.

As my violin teacher has put it, "Playing the violin is an exercise in multi-tasking." It most certainly is!

Both your left hand (which plays the notes) and your right hand (which holds the bow) have their own jobs to do. Both of their jobs are important; without the bow, you won't have any sound. True, you can pluck the the strings (pizzicato), but that doesn't give you all the sounds the violin can give. It's only one sound. Without the fingered notes, you won't have a melody. True, there are four open (non-fingered) notes you can play, but that only gives you a preview of what the violin is really meant to sound like.

How does that compare with the Christian walk? Well, two things that are equally important to
growing in the Lord are:
Reading His Word and prayer. You can pray without reading (or meditating on) the Bible, and you can read the Bible without praying. But think about this. The Bible has everything that God wants us to know in it. What's He's done in the past, what He's doing now, and what He'll do in the future. They all correlate. We can learn from the past, know what He wants us to do right now, and learn how that related to our (and the whole earth's) future. I for one would certainly want to read about that!

The God of the Bible is a personal God. He wants us to get to know Him and follow Him and serve Him out of love. One of the privileges we have as believers in Jesus Christ as our Savior is that we have the ability to speak to Him whenever we need to. Paul says in Colossians 4:2 "Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;". In James 4:16 it says "The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much." Jesus Himself prayed often to His Father. In Luke 6:12 it says "It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God."

We have the same ability to communicate with our Heavenly Father directly as Jesus did! I think that's quite an honor.

So you may be able to see how prayer and reading the Bible go together.
God communicates to us through His word.
We communicate to Him through prayer, which His word commands us to do without ceasing.
They go hand in hand (no pun intended!).

Now back to the violin analogy. There are many small things that you (in general) need to think about while you play. Left hand: Your arm position, thumb position, finger position,
intonation and the various techniques that you use when doing exercises or playing a piece. Trills, shifting, slides and grace notes are just a few of the things your fingers have to do. Right hand: Adjusting the pressure on the bow for the different volumes, keeping your hand flexible and getting the right bowings (up bow or down bow) are a few of the things that your bow hand is responsible for.

Why? They all add to the sound, ease of playing and overall smoothness of playing the instrument. I would be the first to say that it's not easy! At least for me, anyway. I'm certainly not "there" yet. But I'm striving to discipline my ears, arms, hands (and my left thumb!!) to play the right way. There's a lot to it, but it's worth it'll be worth it in the end.

Do you see where I'm headed? The apostle Paul talks a lot about discipline.
1 Timothy 4:7-9 says "On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness;
for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come."

In the same way I need to control my body and make my hands and fingers do the right things when playing the violin, and I need to discipline myself for the purpose of godliness.
But the passage says that godliness golds promise for the life to come as well as the present life. It sounds like it's more worth disciplining myself for!

Of course that type of discipline sure isn't easy, either. Hebrews 12:11 says "All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it,
afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness."

It's not always enjoyable for me to practice the violin. But I want to become a better violinist, so I keep on trying. In the same way, growing in the Lord can be a slow process. But it sure is worth it!

So anyways, I just thought that it was neat how learning to play the violin sort of parallels learning about growing in the Lord. I don't understand everything about growing in the Lord, and I doubt I ever will, but I know that the He will keep on being patient with me, like He has been all along. :-)

"When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will, He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey." - John Sammis

2 Corinthians 3:18 - But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.