An Instrument in the Lord's hands

Being an instrument in the Lord’s hands

    There is this awesome group called the Piano Guys.  Have you heard of them?  They are amazing musicians: masters, if you will.  They do amazing things with their instruments.  Even more amazing is how they take ordinary instruments and expand on their musical potential.  For example, for a couple of music videos they took the top off a grand piano and played it in a most unusual way.  Four or five men stood around this piano, plucking at its strings, winding horse hairs around the strings, using paper, and even hitting, pounding, and beating on different sides of this piano.  The piano is most definitely not played in the typical manner.  Yet, from this dismantling and beating, it produces an amazing sound

   I couldn’t help but think of how the instrument (or witnesses standing by) may have felt.  Perhaps there were questions or comments like: “Wait!  This is NOT the way it should be played.” Or “Why can’t you just play it the ‘right’ way, or the way it was intended?” or “It won’t sound good that way.  It just won’t work.” Or even, “Why would you ruin a perfectly good instrument that way? Why did you ruin it?”

   In fact, there may have been MANY questions of “Why?!”

  But you see, the thing is, The Piano Guys are the master musicians.  They know what they are doing.   As masters, they knew that they could allow the piano to be played like every other piano and it would have still produced beautiful music.  But they also knew of the piano’s potential.  They knew of the amazing things that would happen if the piano trusted in the musician and allowed itself to go down a path it didn’t envision.   By being taken down a “different path,” the piano was taken to a greater level.

    Aren’t we sometimes like this piano?   We are told to be “instruments in the Lord’s hands,” and I’ve been reminded more and more as of late, that this is no simple task.  There are times, we look at our instruments (ourselves), and know what we are capable of.  We know the kind of beautiful music that we could produce if the Master would simply follow our plan and play us as we wish.  We want to just produce the same kind of beautiful music that all the other instruments are producing:  Nothing more, nothing less.

BUT, it is not the instruments job to instruct.  We are NOT the master musicians here.  We are the instruments.  I have been left in awe of this lesson and reminded to take heed of the lesson to be learned.  I lose the potential of a greater power when I limit myself simply to what I already know.  Yet, to truly be an instrument in His hands, I need to trust in Him, and trust that he truly does know what he is doing.  When I want to scream, “WAIT!  NO!  This is NOT the way I was intended to be played!” I am left instead with the image of beautiful music that was created when the instrument was played in a most unusual manner.  When I want to just be like all the other instruments, and played in a simple manner, I am reminded that not all of us were intended to be played the same way.  When I want to say “Stop.  Please don’t break me down like this.  You’ll ruin me!”, I try to think of how this particular piano HAD to be broken down and beaten in order for the Masters to work their magic.

   As trials come and trials go, the most important thing for me to realize right now, is that even a broken down and beaten instrument can still be beautiful.  For it is by the Masters hand that great things are brought to pass. . . .and if the instrument needs to be broken down first, that’s okay (or at least it will be), for the Master is in charge of the instrument, and as we have faith in that, beautiful things WILL come.  

In case you were wondering, here's a link to a few of their videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n543eKIdbUI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VqTwnAuHws