It is said that a poor man made a living with an old violin. He would go from town to town, start playing, and people would gather around him. After listening to his music, they would leave him a little bit of alms, because his music was worth no more than that.
One day, he began to play as usual, a crowd gathered, and the usual happened: more or less harmonious noises. Neither the violin nor the violinist could produce anything better. By chance, a professional violinist happened to pass by. Upon hearing the noise of the violin, something caught his attention—it sounded bad, but to his professional ear, it seemed it could sound better.
After the poor man finished playing a song, the professional asked for the violin. The poor man, somewhat surprised, handed it over. The violinist began to tune it and prepare it to be played. Finally, he started playing a classical piece in a marvelous way.
All the spectators were astonished. The poor owner of the violin was also surprised, not only by the beautiful music but also that such beautiful music could come from his violin. Seeing the people gathered around, all fascinated by the music, as soon as the piece ended, the poor man began to exclaim, “It’s my violin…! It’s my violin…! It’s my violin…!” He had never imagined that those old strings held so many possibilities.
This interesting story can be compared to our lives. We are that poor violinist, the violin represents our life, and the professional violinist is God, who wants to make beautiful music with our lives. We are like that violinist: we play the violin of our lives, but of course, we are not professional violinists, so nothing more than noises—at best, more or less harmonious—come out. Our abilities do not allow for more.
God is always near us, asking us to hand over the violin of our lives so He can make beautiful music. If we want our lives to sound like a well-tuned violin in the hands of a great violinist, we need to hand the violin over to God and let Him play.
When do we play instead of God? How do we let God play the violin of our lives? When we act according to our own tastes and desires, we are the ones playing the violin of our lives: the sounds that come out are nothing more than worthless noises, not the true music of life. When we listen to God’s voice and do things according to His will, that is when we let Him play the chords of our lives. In this way, our lives will not only produce music but divine music, just as the lives of the saints have produced divine music simply because they let God play the violin of their lives.
