Making His Music

Hi, and welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Today's reading, titled Making His Music, was written by Patricia Rabin. Choir director Ariana Bela spent her childhood sitting on her hands to hide them.

Born with fingers missing or fused together on both hands, she also had no left leg and was missing toes on her right foot. A music lover and lyric soprano, she'd planned to major in government at Smith College. But one day her choir teacher asked her to conduct the choir, which made her hands quite visible.

From that moment, she found her career going on to conduct church choirs and serving now as director of choirs at another university. My teachers saw something in me, Abayla explains. Her inspiring story invites believers to ask, what does God, our holy teacher, see in us, regardless of our limits? According to Genesis 1 27, more than anything, he sees himself. So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God, he created them.

Male and female, he created them. As his glorious image bearers, when others see us, we should reflect him. For Abayla, that means Jesus, not her hands or her lack of fingers, matters most.

The same is true for all believers. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image, says 2 Corinthians 3 18. Similar to Abayla, we can conduct our lives by Christ's transforming power, offering a life song that rings out to the honor of God.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verses 17 through 18. Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the spirit.

Let's pray. Dear God, how merciful and gracious you are to make beautiful things out of us, no matter what physical condition we are in. You've given the blind person the ability to write wonderful hymns, a lame person the ability to play the violin superbly, and a deaf man to compose brilliant music. As followers of Christ, may we lean on the verse in Philippians that all of our talents, abilities, and accomplishments, great or small, come from God who gives us the strength. Thank you, Jesus. Amen. Today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.