Yet, O LORD, you are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand. (Isaiah 64:8)
It was just an ordinary keyboard – nice, basic, but nothing necessarily grand about it. We first heard it as background music accompanying another instrument – nice, basic, but definitely in the background. It was what you would expect from your basic electronic keyboard. It wasn’t supposed to be anything more.
Until she touched it.
Dr. Juyeon Kang, Assistant Professor of Music at Northwestern College and world-class pianist, was traveling with the NWC Drama Team on this trip. When possible, she performed along with them. But at Yukinoshita Congregation in Kamakura there was a small problem: they have no piano. They have a grand pipe organ, but no piano.
On June 1st, at a welcome dinner, a guest brought in the simple keyboard to accompany a flute. After dinner, they asked Dr. Kang to play. A world-class pianist, used to the finest instruments, answers a request to play an electronic keyboard.
“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” arranged to classical format, streamed from the small speakers and filled the room. For four minutes, a keyboard became a grand piano and everyone stopped in their tracks. It had ceased to be a background instrument and transformed into a concert grand.
The fifty or so people gathered stopped all they were doing and hung on every note, hearts gathering around the glory of Christ in the beauty of the moment.
The moment froze for me as I pondered God’s work in each of our lives. Most of us would see ourselves as rather ordinary people – mere background noise to the world’s cacophony of activity.
Until the Master Potter touches.
He takes what seems to be rather ordinary pieces of pottery and clay and molds them into beauty unmatched and purposes beyond belief. As C.S. Lewis once said, “There are no ordinary people.” For those known by Christ are being transformed day by day into something extraordinary.
In the hands of the Father’s touch, you are far from ordinary. Start believing it today.
