Un-Dampered

It happened again this week. So often when I'm teaching piano, I'll be talking to a student and the child will rest his or her hands on the keys, depressing them ever so lightly. As they do this, the damper is lifted off the strings inside the keyboard leaving them unprotected and exposed to outside stimuli. And in this case, that stimuli was the human voice. As the student and I talked, the unguarded strings began to respond to the vibrations in the strain of our voices, and as they did, they began to sound or play. One might even say "sing." The hum began ever so lightly and then grew stronger the longer the strings were left un-dampered. And so what I did was reach down and gently lift the child's hands off the keys and place them in their lap so the dampers would once again rest upon the strings, stopping all vibrations.

Is this not a picture of our own unguarded soul? We have this particular desire in us to "sing," if you will. We are created in such a way to respond to God's voice and activity in our life. But for some reason, we'll let ourselves become "un-dampered." Maybe it comes with a lapse in our quiet time or daily Bible reading. Or a season of prayerlessness. Maybe the company we keep is having a pull on us. Whatever it is, we are left open to stimuli surrounding us -- and, boy, is it ever around us. And so this outside "voice" begins to call. Maybe it has the ring of Satan himself, but more likely it's just the world and the temptive call it has on our life. Whatever the cause, that desire in us begins to vibrate or resonate, and because we are not under God's protective control, before you know it, we're singing with that thing.

The strings on that piano in my music room were made to vibrate and to vibrate powerfully and beautifully. But they were meant to sing in response to the striking of a hammer under the control of a skilled musician and not to the voice of an outsider.

Just an ordinary moment...