When a piano performance concludes, who gets the applause? Is it the piano or the pianist? The piano is designed to create specific musical sounds, but without the pianist, the piano does nothing. The pianist’s skill makes a piece of furniture become a musical instrument to produce a pleasing concert that brings joy to everyone.
Let’s think of the piano as the DNA that provides a blueprint for our bodies. The human genome is the complete sequence of the information the DNA supplies. It includes genes that code for proteins as well as non-coding genes. This is a greatly simplified description of something infinitely more complex than a piano. The piano’s keys, hammers, and strings cannot be an adequate comparison to the human genome, but it will suffice for our parable.
So, in the piano concert, the pianist is the one who ultimately determines whether the performance is good or bad. The actions of the pianist can produce a pleasing concert that brings joy and pleasure to the audience. Or the pianist can make everyone uncomfortable. The pianist is the person everyone sees and applauds or the one that people boo.
If the piano is the DNA, then we are the pianists. Our DNA does not determine the quality of our lives. It may give us opportunities for success or have defective parts that make success in life more difficult. But we choose how we play the concert, and how we play can bring joy to others despite our limitations.
However, it is not just people to whom we can bring joy or pain. There is a piano Designer. In this life, He has not given each of us the same quality piano. The parable of the talents tells us that. But the Creator expects us to use what we have to make music pleasing to those around us and, ultimately, to Him.
How can we present a concert that even the Creator will applaud? He hasn’t left us without guidance. The Creator also gave us the musical score to follow. Read it, learn from it, and practice it every day. And when people applaud the pleasing concert, remember to give the credit to the One who created the piano and wrote the music.
— Roland Earnst © 2023