Taking on the Impossibles

Her feet swung from the piano bench, until we turned the page.  She saw all those black notes, and her legs stopped swinging.  That’s too hard!  I can’t play it.  It’s too hard!

You can, I said.  (Ignoring her most pathetic sighing and already-defeated slouching.)

And we started in.  One measure at a time.

No, that’s not it, I said.  Her fingers fumbled, playing a few more wrong notes, until finally landing in the right place and playing what sounded like a song.

Measure by measure.

She labored through the whole song, and then I asked her to start back at the beginning and play it again.  She did, still with a few wrong notes but more confidently the second time.  See, you can play it.  It was hard, but not too hard.

This is how I come to the Bible, like when I turn the page to the verse that says, “…be holy in all you do.”  (1 Peter 1:15  NIV)  My legs stop swinging, and I cry out petulantly, I can’t!  It’s too hard.  I can’t do it! 

Or the verse that says, “…put off your old self…”  (Ephesians 4:22  NIV)

I can’t!

Or the verse that says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths…”  (Ephesians 4:29  NIV)

It’s too hard! 

I picture God sitting next to me on the piano bench, saying, You can.  Now let’s get to work.

It’s really the best news ever –that we CAN.  Because we have a patient teacher who is (I think annoyingly) quite convinced that we can do things that look impossible to our eyes, and He is most determined, and we WILL.

It’s that or quit lessons all together.  And don’t people always regret that they didn’t stick with their piano lessons?

What command in the Bible has you screaming, Too hard!