Linger and Listen

I set the metronome to 88. The piece was in cut time (meaning there would be two beats per "click"). Immediately my student began trying to match the notes on the music to the beat of the small time-keeping device. I placed my hands on her hands to stop her, and said, "Listen for the beat." Once again, she jumped in; and once again, I stopped her mechanical approach of trying to make her hands align with the tick-tock of the metronome.

This time I said, "Don't play yet. Just listen to the beat. Let it become a part of you inside here," tapping my hand on my chest. I instructed her to let the music flow, not from her head to hands, but from her head to her hands through the beat inside." Thus she did. And thus was her success.

It's strange how God can use such a simple illustration to bring home a truth in my own life. For how many times have I done the same thing: just jumped into the hustle and bustle of the day, expecting full well to produce some kind of music in my life because I had the mechanics right? But the Lord says to me, "Linger in my Presence and hear My heartbeat." And so I rein in my impulses to jump into the day's activity, and I listen. And from there, when my beat melds with His, and the two become one, the true music begins.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Eph. 2:10).

Just an ordinary moment...