An instrument

I have an *odd* habit of doing all the days dishes at once...the next morning. So every morning after I feed Hadassah her breakfast, she has playpen time and I have kitchen time. She plays with Teds, George, Little Miss Piggie and all of her beloved stuffed animals, and I dive into a sink full of dishes. It used to be one of my least favorite chores. (you could say I coveted a dishwasher...) But now I rather enjoy it. Why? Because it's my radio time. It's most often Revive Our Hearts, but Alistair Begg (whom I recently discovered and very much enjoy!) and John Piper get in there once in awhile, too.

Right now Nancy is doing a study on Mary, which is rather appropriate for the season don't you think? And I just wanted to share a snippet of her program with you because it was such a great reminder for me. Hopefully it will turn your mind to being an instrument in God's hand, as it did for me:

"Are you content not to be recognized, not to be appreciated, not to have people make a big deal about what you’re doing because you’ve accepted the goal for your life that you will make Him to be known? Your goal is to make Him to be seen, to be great, and it really doesn’t matter then what others think about you.

When Mary prayed her great prayer in Luke chapter 1, verse 48, she said, “[God] has been mindful of the humble state of his servant” (NIV). She did not see herself as worthy of the favor of God. She knew that it was all of God’s goodness and His grace that He was using her. She really had the spirit of John the Baptist. Remember how he said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30, ESV).

Are you willing to decrease—to be less known, to take the place of humility—in order that He can increase? You can never go wrong on the pathway of humility because it’s not about us—it’s all about Him. It’s about what God is doing through His Son Jesus in our world, and we’re just instruments.

Some time ago I remember meeting a woman who was a well-known violinist in an Eastern European country. She talked about this matter of humility, and she held up her violin and she said, “It would be foolish for this violin to think that it is anything.” She said, “What makes it something is when someone who knows how to play it begins to play it.”

Then she said, “We are as that block of wood in the hands of God, and if any beautiful music comes through our lives, it’s not because we were anything. It’s because the Master knew what to do with us and how to use us as simply an instrument in His hands.”

So we realize it’s not about this block of wood. It’s about the Lord who wants to make beautiful music through us, reflecting His glory to others." (taken from ROH)