Continuing with yesterday’s concert theme, June and I had a profound experience recently that we’re still processing. I think I’ve finally come to a conclusion worth writing about. See what you think.

Sparing you unnecessary detail, the short version is we attended a piano concert at a church, and the pianist was terrible. I know, I know, we are pianists ourselves, and I have several very imperfect CDs out there (www.bobplayspiano.com), but trust me in this. One impartial, non-musician friend who heard a clip from the performer’s website said, “He sounds like a beginning piano student.”

But he’s not “a beginning piano student,” he has a master’s in music education, taught in the public schools, and now at about age 50, I’m guessing, continues to cobble together a living making music, including playing piano for a small church.

Questions abound:

• Why would a guy try to make a living doing something he’s not very good at?
• Is the general public not able to discriminate between an acceptable performance and poor quality?
• How good should one be to perform in public?

That last is probably the key question. Maybe it’s like Jesus at the feeding of the 5,000:

And he said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” (Mark 6.38, ESV)

And he said, “Bring them here to me.” (Matthew 14.18, ESV)

“What do you have? Bring it to me.”

While I admire excellence wherever I see it, and I would never advocate doing slipshod work, maybe the best we can do is good enough. I perform all the time at considerably less than “professional” quality, but God has seen fit to bless people with my music over the years.

Maybe, as a friend said, “We’re all him.” We take our gifts and abilities, and we offer them in service to Jesus, such as they are.

I have one more thought. Stay tuned.

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (1 Corinthians 1.26 – 29, ESV)