She sits with a group of piano students waiting for her lesson…
She towers over her fellow students…
She barely fits into the kid-sized chairs…
Not surprising since most of the students are less than nine years old and she’s in her forties…
Her parents couldn’t afford piano lessons let alone a piano.
Now she owns a piano and can afford the lessons.
When she started the lessons, she couldn’t wait until Christmas. She pictured the family gathered around the piano singing carols.
Christmas is only three weeks away. She isn’t ready for her holiday debut.
Today she will tell her teacher that this lesson is her last…
- Work is busy …
- There are a lot of family demands …
- She isn’t very good anyway …
- And piano is only a hobby …
We all make decisions …
Decisions about what’s core to the business of life…
And what’s just a hobby …
A young woman drops her children at church.
She should go to church too, she tells herself…
- But things aren’t going well …
- She’s just gotten a divorce…
- Money is scarce…
- She’ll go back when things get better…
She makes a decision about what is core to her life, and as a result misses one of the great promises of God…
Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10
Her church, aware of her problems, makes a decision…
The “kind” approach, they decide, is to leave her alone…
In that decision, they miss the chance to follow Christ’s command…
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Luke 10:27
They miss the chance to witness to the world…
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:35
We all make decisions…As individuals and as the body of the church…
What will we decide?
Will we decide that living for God is the business of our life?
And He said to them … Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” Luke 2:49
