Playing from the Heart

Not everyone who visits me here visits my "Thrifty Style at Sixty-Two" blog.  Over there this morning,  I posted a collage of pictures of a few pieces from my piano collection along with a quote.  Only after I reviewed the post for errors did a truth from another level jump out at me from the quote!

"Personal style is like playing the piano.
First you must learn to play by the rules,
then you must forget the rules
and play from your heart."

                     (copied from somewhere; no source cited)

It's not only "personal style" and "piano playing" that move from playing by the rules to playing from your heart!  It's true of one's spiritual maturity, too!   Too often we error.  In our desire to live in Christian freedom, we ignore the fundamentals--to our detriment.  On the other hand, to stop at the rules and fail to let the grace of God flood our hearts (as did many of the Pharisees of Jesus' day) is incredibly stifling and sometimes even deadly!!  

In the words of the writer to Hebrew believers:  "Let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity...It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them...let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith."

In 2011, I want to spend more time at my piano.  Since I have not given piano lessons this past year, I've kind of neglected God's gift of music.  And as I play, I want to remember the correlation of  playing by the rules and playing from the heart--at the piano and in my daily life with the Lord Jesus Christ!