Who out there can identify what's going on with those fingertips? And if indeed you can identify what's going on with those fingertips, you yourself probably understand the meaning of pain and also have the disturbing ability to stick pins in your own fingertips without wincing.
Those fingertips are my own, after playing my guitar. It doesn't hurt, it just looks that way. However, if you're a guitar/banjo/mandolin/sitar player, you can easily remember the feeling, when you first started playing, that your fingertips were being sliced open by the strings on your instrument. One of the biggest hurdles for a beginning player has got to be developing those calloused fingertips. Anyone sticking it out until that process is over deserves a medal. Or a certificate. Or at least a handshake! There's no way that I or anyone else could play a steel-stringed instrument without those protective callouses.
Life has a way of hardening us in good and not-so-good ways. The not-so-good ways are easy to recognize, but I was thinking the other night, while drifting off to sleep, that sometimes the toughness brought on by life can be a good thing.
If we're willing to learn some hard lessons, life rewards us with some Godly toughness. Perseverance, wisdom, patience, faith...all of these are the outcome of becoming "Godly-tough." Strangely enough, so are meekness, unselfishness and a servant's heart.
Case in point: I am selfish. I never realized how selfish I am. I'm really butting up against this in my heart and spirit, and it hurts! It hurts like fresh fingers on cold guitar strings! I need to change, I need to keep practicing the love of Jesus, and hopefully someday I'll have the toughness necessary to be a little more tender.
We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Hebrews 5:11-14
3 comments:
Dude, when you say, "those fingertips are my own," are you speaking figuratively, like "sometimes my fingers look like this guy's" or is that a photo of your actual hand? Pretty sick either way.....
Good post btw
That is indeed a picture of my very own digits, shot with a cool photo app on my phone :) ... Technology is taking all the fun out of post-processing...:D
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