Joyful Joyful

This week I have had a great time practising. Despite having a rough time at work at times this week I have managed to find time almost everyday this week to play all of my instruments. The one I am enjoying most and making the most progress with at the moment is my new cornet. This week I have played some fantastic new pieces my two favourites have been the Hayden Trumpet Concerto which is a solo I am practising with my music teacher. The second of my favourites was one I played with the brass band at my Church called Joyful Joyful.

Joyful Joyful is a piece I have heard many times in the past and has been a favourite of mine for many years. It is a brass band arrangement of Ode to Joy, but it is a modern and slightly jazzed up arrangement. The reason why I enjoyed playing this piece is because it gives me the opportunity to shine as I have a solo section where the band is thinly scored and my part carries the band. I massively enjoyed playing it in the practice and look forward to getting to perform it to an audience next month.

All of this has had me thinking about the talents and gifts that God gives to each one of us and the parable of the talents. For many years when I was running away from God I also ignored and buried my talent for music. I played my guitar and was quite good at it, but I never played my cornet which is by far the instrument I have played best in the past. We are warned in this parable that if we don't use the talents God has given us we will lose them, we need to use them so that they and the good they can do will grow and increase.

I am blessed day by day, week by week as I am now playing my cornet again as my skill level is beginning to come back, that my talent which was so close to being lost is once again growing and is being used by God in my Church.

One thing that this parable misses out is that God is a forgiving God. If we come back to him and admit that we are wrong, that we have failed Him then He will reward us. If we have ignored our talents and we are on the verge of losing them by coming back to God and using them again we will be rewarded by God. Think of a fourth servant who began by burring his talents but then realised that He was wrong and then dug them up and invested them. This servant would have at first been chastised by the master for not making the most of his talents, but would at least be congratulated and rewarded for realising he was at fault and eventually using them.