What would you do if you were handed a clean slate, a sort of cosmic
Witness Protection Program, a complete do-over, a blank canvas to fill up?
It occurs to me that this rarely happens in life (unless you actually
are in the Witness Protection Program), as life is a work of art and as such it is more of a progressive thing...An elaborate oil painting being created layer by layer....When one layer is dry, the background perhaps, a new layer is started, moving forward into the foreground of the piece...
...layer upon layer upon layer.......
If all goes well, if you've lived the layers of your life with care and color, you end up with something right out of a Bob Ross special...
...But what if all hasn't gone well.....
...What if the background's been badly botched up? What if you were careless about the colors you chose? What if this painting's pigment depicts broken bonds, hurting hearts, missteps or downright disasters?
And so you add to it, another layer, and another layer, to cover and conceal, but it is fast becoming a muddy mess...
What Then?
What Now?
Well,
What if...
...What if there is a Master Artist.....What if He told you to take a breath, yield to Him your brush, and be still for awhile...
And what if He hid His progress while He worked, leaving you with the unrest of wonder?
Could you be still? Could you rest? Could you yield not only your brush but your will as well? Could you concede control over the creation that you were making a mess of on your own....Could you trust Him with your treasure?
What if God allows seasons of stillness, intervals of inertia, till we are quiet and centered and motionless enough to begin moving again? What if all the while of waiting He is forging a fresh foundation, smoothing our surface, or blending the layers into lovely symmetry so that we have a new perspective to persist from, perhaps with more patience this time, hopefully with humility, and a dose of deference to
Someone-Who-Actually-Might-Know-More-Than-I-Do, whose Hand guides our own as we work this canvas into a meaningful composition.
Because when all is said and done,
He is more invested than even
we are in the finished product of our paths...He oversees the work because ultimately it is
His work,
WE are
His work, His magnum opus, His poema. We are not alone, we are not left to our own limited palette in this cumulative creation,
and we realize,
at the end of the day,
that we ourselves are the canvas,
His canvas.
As long as we are still tethered to terra, the creation continues, depth and dimension are added to our make up, diminutive details divulged, developing the message of the masterpiece, the legacy of our lives...
The end result on Eternity's easel will evoke either usurped or surrendered control, chaos or beauty, the work of an amateur or the work of The Master...
...And we must ask ourselves what we want displayed,
not only in the Here and Now,
but in the Halls of Heaven....
"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." -Ephesians 2:10
