#344.2 – “A Difference”

“But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” - Acts 20:24
Anna has been taking piano lessons for a while now. At the very beginning of here training, there were a lot of wrong notes and repeated mistakes… pauses and corrections… and sometimes still repeated mistakes. Lately, Sarah and I have noticed that she is becoming much more capable with her playing. She still makes mistakes, of course, but they are fewer and farther between… and even more importantly, they trip her up less. I think that is the biggest sign to me that she is maturing as a player: the mistakes she does make do not hinder her from playing the piece she is working on at the time. Sometimes she will stop and fix them; sometimes, she may play ‘through’ them; but she still gets through the piece one way or another.
As I think of what ought to be some signs of being more mature in our faith, I think that sinning less should be in the list… but I also know that some sinning will still take place. And when it does, one sign of maturity is that it has less ‘effect’ on us, in terms of getting us off track from the mission God has called us to… what Paul referred to as ‘finishing the race’. When my sins cause me to focus so much on them that I miss the next thing God has in store for me, the song God has for me to play isn’t getting played. But when I can ‘go on’ and keep playing – knowing I am going to hit some ‘clunkers’ every now and then – and yet can still play the overall piece, then God is glorified… while His grace is shown as a needful thing.

Daniel