Tolerable

I had an interesting answer to a question I asked this week. The question was fairly normal for a piano teacher to ask her student: “How are you coming along with Jack and the Beanstalk?” Her answer gave me a blog entry. “Tolerable,” she said. Tolerable? I had to chuckle. Having taught thousands of hours of piano lessons over the course of some 30 years, I had never received such an answer as Genna gave me. Tolerable.

Tolerable. I just couldn’t get that word out of my mind. Ever since that lesson, I’ve been asking myself this question: is my relationship with Christ, like Genna’s performance of Jack and the Beanstalk, just tolerable; fairly good – not bad? Am I satisfied with just being tolerable, a partial transformation to the image of Christ, or do I want to become a mature manifestation of God’s Son? Do I truly want to know Him face to face? Do I want to embrace Him in all of His fullness?

A fellow blogger recently asked what our first memory verse was. I responded with Gal. 2:20. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but He who lives within me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the One who loved me and gave Himself for me. As I wrote that, I realized that I may have put it in my head but not necessarily in my heart. Have I really been crucified with Christ? Have I associated myself with His death? Have I truly given all in order to obtain all, for the degree of knowing Him directly corresponds to my willingness to yield to His transforming power? Is His life being manifested in me, or am I merely tolerable.

Obviously, to pursue anything more than tolerable is costly. But to lose everything to obtain all of Him – have you ever known a better deal? Some things really are priceless.

Thanks, Genna, for the lesson.