I once saw a picture of a violin that had been restrung by a parent. The parent was quite proud that this problem had been taken care of without the teacher’s help. But the thing is, the picture showed how the job had been horribly botched. The strings would have to be totally removed and restrung. But worse yet, in “fixing” things, the parent very likely created a worse problem INSIDE the violin. I was horrified on behalf of that poor teacher.
Two verses came to mind as I thought about that sad restringing job.
Romans 3:10-11 None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.
Isaiah 64:6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags…
What do these verses have to do with the violin story? We are all like that parent. We try to fix our messed up lives ourselves, trying to fix our lack of righteousness. But like that parent, we mess things up worse, more than we even realize. What we should do is admit that we don’t have the ability to fix ourselves. Instead, we should go to the only One who can fix us, that is Jesus. He knows our inmost thoughts. He knows how we are made, how frail we are. And He knows His righteousness is the only thing that will set us to right. Restringing, retuning, putting the inside pieces back into the correct place, these are all painful and difficult. But as Jesus cleans us up, and the Holy Spirit tunes us through the Word, we become the beautiful instrument we were designed to be.
Psalm 37:5-6 Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.
Faith Gym 