Who Needs a Teacher?

We just got back from our summer trip, the next MAYS season's audition looming only three weeks away.  The violin is dusted off and tuned up. The music is on the stand. The YouTube channels scoured for Concerto Grosso in C-moll and Wohlfahrt’s Etude #57.

By now, we all know very well how both pieces are supposed to sound. We got that by listening to the pros. In fact, the entire family has memorized the beautiful melodies that have begun to haunt us in our sleep.

But, listening and dreaming about the music isn’t going to cut it.  Even memorizing and humming the entire opus will be of no help on the day of audition.

Important as these might be, they don't make a musician. And, all of them are relatively easy. No particular skill or talent is required to do them.

Actually playing, however, is hard. Really hard.

The sole musician in our musically disinclined family is at his wits end.  

Working harder isn’t helping. 

"Helpful" tips from his concerned parent aren't helpful at all. 

At this point, all this only generates more frustration.

We can’t do this on our own. We need help!  We need somebody who will break down this monster into bite-size pieces we can chew and digest and put them back together into a soulful melody that stirs the hearts of everyone who listens. 

We need our teacher back!

I find myself in that ‘wits-end’ place in life a lot.  I can listen to the best preaching. I can read and even memorize Sermon on the Mount or I Corinthians 13 and recite them in my sleep.

But actually living those words?!!?

It’s hard.  In fact, on my own, absolutely impossible.

I need my Teacher back! 

For He and He alone can break down those lofty soliloquies into bite-size pieces in a way that helps me make sense of them in my wits-ends moments and my fraying-ends days.  

And He alone knows how to put it all together so my life isn’t an irritating series of screeching noises that gets on everyone’s nerves but a soul-stirring echo of a grander symphony played by the Great Composer Himself.