Judgement Day

I turn into the woodsy drive. I feel pretty good about today. I have practiced pretty well - I think I'm prepared. My teacher greets me at the door, and I sit down at the piano and begin to play. Suddenly, my preparation doesn't seem so solid. The sections that seemed "pretty good" at home I suddenly see for what they really are - sloppy, unmusical. How could I have thought that I was ready for this lesson, that I had practiced enough, that my pieces were good enough? Why didn't I see that anything less than perfection wouldn't cut it?

This has happened many times in a lesson - even when I honestly thought at home that I was striving for perfection and practicing carefully and diligently. When I am playing at a lesson, I have a different perspective. One day, I was thinking about how all my best efforts suddenly seem trite and unworthy when I have to present them to my teacher, and I realized that this is exactly what it will be like one day when we have to stand before God and present Him with our best efforts at righteousness. Suddenly, our lives, our words, our actions, our thoughts which seemed "pretty good" when we were looking at them through our eyes will be seen for what they really are - filthy rags. Nothing less than perfection is going to "cut it" for the Almighty God of the Universe. Unfortunately, we can never be perfect on our own. Thankfully, God has provided a solution through His Son, Jesus Christ. When we trust in Him, we are covered in HIS righteousness, so God sees us as His perfection. 

Unfortunately for me, there is no such solution for piano. I just have to keep striving for perfection and try to listen with my teacher's ears as I practice. If one day after a lesson, I disappear, you will know what happened. Judgement has come.