The Eternal Tuning Fork

Author Lloyd Douglas enjoyed visiting an old violin teacher who lived in rather shabby circumstances, but who always had a word of good news. One morning Douglas stopped by to visit briefly with his friend. “Well,” he asked, “what’s the good news today?”

The old man put down his violin, walked over to a tuning fork suspended from a silk cord and struck it sharply with a padded mallet. “There’s the good news for today. That, my friend, was an A. It was an A all day yesterday. It will be an A all day tomorrow, next week, and for a thousand years.

I was midway through our Vacation Samaritan work camp in Baja, Mexico. We were working in a rural village without benefit of either electric lights or running water. Finding that I had some free time, I walked the sandy mile to the Pacific beach where I washed my grit-filled dirty hair in the salty surf. Feeling restored, I walked leisurely back to camp, where I could look in the mirror.

One look in the mirror revealed hair blown in all directions. My once-clean Tee shirt had turned to the color of sand, transformed by the blowing dust. Grey-black blotches of beard marked my face and my skin was the color of baked beans. There was not much way I could make me look like the man my church knew back home, but at home I had the convenience of showers, shampoos, and freshly laundered wash-n-wears.

“That is just how many people feel about themselves and all the circumstantial things they would like to forget. How nice—if they could just wipe it all clean and start over!”

I’ve been in a funk this week. Yet, when I stop and reflect on the opportunities that the challenges of these days offer, I have to pause and once more give thanks for the faithfulness of God. His faithfulness is even more true than the A-note sounded on the tuning fork by the old music teacher.

God is still God. He has been there all the time and he will be this live long day. He will still be the same tomorrow, and next week, or next year, for however long you and I need to get ourselves cleaned up, our hair washed, and our faces scrubbed. And, if a new change of clothes doesn’t do, and you need an internal cleansing, he’ll do a heart transformation on you as well.

 

M. W. Runyan, the poet, found in God the Eternal Tuning Fork and he came up with these words; join me in singing this old and familiar hymn:

Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father,

There is no shadow of turning with thee;

Thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not;

As thou hast been thou forever wilt be.

_____

Great is thy faithfulness,

Great is thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see;

All I have needed thy hand hath provided—

Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!

                                                                          

From Warner’s World, this  is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com