It has been a life-long desire of mine to learn to play the piano. My Dad gave me a Sears Silverton acoustic guitar when I was about 11, and I taught myself to bang around on that, mostly just chording to accompany singing. But I wanted to learn the piano. We didn’t have one, so the opportunity never really availed itself. When I went to college I thought, “Ok, they have piano training here, and little rooms just big enough for a piano that you can get in and practice, so I’ll just learn to play the piano here.” So I signed up and eagerly went to my first class. It was like that teacher was talking to me in a different language. It didn’t take long that day to figure out this was not the way I was going to learn to play the piano. I dropped the class. Fast forward fifty three years and three wives later, one by divorce, one by death, and now living with one who plays the piano by ear and can rip it up like you would not believe. A piano is in the house, and, Christmas a year ago I got a keyboard with headphones (all the practice is only heard by me). I make an effort to practice and play some every day. It’s a lot of work, but the reward is good. I enjoy it. I’ll probably never be good enough to play with George Baker’s Bluegrass band, but I enjoy what I am able to accomplish. It is a struggle to get what my brain is trying to do on those 88 keys laid out before me, and to actually get my fingers to accurately do it. It takes focus, “programming in” the correct thing to do, and lots of spaced repetition to ingrain it into me so that it becomes part of my life.
The Bible says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word (Romans 10:17). We can increase faith with the Word of God like learning to play the piano. When we place our focus on the promises of the Word, and “program it in”, or “hide it in our heart”, and keep that Word before us with “spaced repetition” so that it becomes a part of our life, there will always be good results. When we hear something over and over, we get to believing it. When we “get to believing” the promises of God, the sky is the limit. With God all things are possible. That is the value of feeding on and embracing the Word of God. That Word can bring peace to our soul and life to our flesh in healing, restoring, rejuvenating, power. The power is there in the Word by the Spirit of God. If we are willing to give ourselves to focus and persistently apply that Word by affirming it out loud into our life situations, we will be able to play a new melody.
