Beyond A Masterpiece

Think about the one thing you've done in life that you are most proud of. Think about how you feel when you finish all of your work and you can stand back and look at how together everything is. Think about an artist looking at his painting after he finishes the last stroke and seeing his work as a whole. Think about a musician listening to a song he's written and recorded and being able to hear the song with all the elements that he envisioned. Think about doing your laundry, and afterwards getting to step back and see that all your clothes are clean. Think about reading a book, and after finishing knowing the whole story that lies between the two covers. Think about looking at last year's calendar knowing all about what happened in those 364 days. Think about organizing your room; it seems like you're going backwards at first, messing everything up, but eventually everything comes together and it ends up looking much better.

I like to think that's how God feels when he looks at our life. In our life we only see the present moment and have fleeting memories of the moments that have already passed. We don't know what it looks like all put together until its over. We can't step back and see what things will become. God can do that. He works on our life; he makes it a beautiful painting, a song, clean laundry, a book, a year, an organized room. He steps back and sees everything put together and knows that this life he's created will be a beautiful life that gives all the glory to Him. We see our lives in the process. We see the painting close up. We can see all the strokes and the colors don't mix well and it looks messy. We are reading the book. We know what happened in the chapters before, but to us everything just looks like a mess for the time being. We don't know if there will be a happy ending, or if the character will ever find what he's looking for. We are still working on our math homework. We're still on problem number 10, and we have many more to do. It looks never ending, and it seems so jumbled. God doesn't have that. He looks at our life as a whole. He knows what he's doing. The thing is, the painting cannot disobey the painter, it does not have that free will. The room cannot unorganize itself, the organizer has all the power. The homework cannot make itself wrong, the student is doing the homework. We can disobey our painter though. We have the free will to do as we please. So thats the hard part. Obeying.

Trust the Lord. He's quite a painter, and everything that he paints is beyond a masterpiece.