The Violin

By Stephen M. Crotts

Life is like being born and given a violin one can neither tune nor play. But every day we must publicly play it as we journey through life.

It’s a complicated instrument that takes years to master. And much to our chagrin, it is capable of both beauty and fingernails-scraping-on-a-chalkboard irritation. All of us, at least at first, major on the irritation side. Think tantrums. Midnight crying. Spilled milk. Destructive behavior.

But what to do? We can sally forth with bravado doing the best we can, all the while excusing our wretched disharmony with “That’s just who I am!”  Temper, divorce, bankruptcy, profanity, mean-spiritedness, dishonesty, and the like…

Or we can learn from those across the centuries who’ve actually learned how to tune the violin and play it. That’s right. I’m actually talking about being teachable, studying, practicing, being mentored.

God did not give us life, a violin and a bow, and say, “Here! Fiddle with this until you learn to make good music.” He gave us incredible composers like Bach and Mozart. He gave us ears to hear it. He gave us an aesthetic longing for beauty and harmony. He gave us history and its hosts from whom to learn. He’s given us time to practice. And we, each of us, can learn to make music in our friendships, in marriage, in our jobs, in wisdom, kindness and hope.

This is why Jesus Christ came. He is a symphony of beauty in a world of missed notes. He is forever hope, a chance to begin again, to get the music right. And His door is forever open to new students.

The Reverend Stephen Crotts is pastor of Village Presbyterian Church in Charlotte Court House, VA. He is also the director of the Carolina Study Center, Inc., a campus ministry, located in Chapel Hill, NC. Pastor Crotts may be reached at carolinastudycenter@msn.com.