Are You Painting the Piano?
Bandleader Count Basie told a club owner, whose piano was out of tune, “I am not returning until you fix it.” A month later, Basie received a call from the club owner and he told him everything was fine. When Basie returned to the club and tried to play, the piano was still out of tune. “You said you fixed the piano!” an angry Basie exclaimed. “I did,” the owner replied. “I had it painted.” The owner solved the wrong problem!
Is your life, ministry, finances, marriage, family and spiritual life out of tune? Maybe you are “painting the piano” when you should be tuning it. Could it be you are not seeing the kind of success you desire in your life because you are not solving the right problems? For example, the answer to getting out of debt is not necessarily making more money. If you make more money, more than likely, you will spend more money, unless you solve the right problem. The issue that needs to be addressed is mismanagement of the money you already make. You need to become a faithful manager of the financial resources that God has entrusted to you.
Are you solving the right problems? Is there a more significant problem that you are overlooking? Tell me what you think.
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Tags: Solving Problems
January 17th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Soulman,
Great post! Too often we put ban-aids on cuts that require stitches. Thanks for pointing us in the right direction – fix the piano. Keep writing/posting.
May 21st, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Great analogy. My husband and I are learning to do this specifically with finances and praising God for the results. I'm learning that true deliverance comes when we address the problems not cover them and am grateful for a God who takes the time and has the patience to work with us as we dig through all those layers, get to the root of the problem, and work on solving it.
May 22nd, 2010 at 8:33 am
My husband was hurt by the church org. He ran the church for 5 years picking up the pieces after a number of preachers would leave they would not ordain him when he felt that what his call was he backed out of church and won’t go back we have 3 boys ages 12,14,15 and they need to be in church how can I help him
May 23rd, 2010 at 7:25 pm
Prayer.
Sometimes, my wife would be upset that we hadn't spent enough time together. I would then rent movies we could watch. But that isn't what she wanted so much as 1-on-1 interaction. Turn off everything, sit, and talk. But you can "overtune." What was once a "flat" could be come too "sharp," so we found that when we forced conversation, it would not end well, end in conflicted discussion. That was not healthy either, so we found that moderation, "natural," was the (correct) "key."
Also, she wanted us to pray together…everyday. I'm still working on that one.