APPRECIATING GOD'S WORK OF ART

If you love art you no doubt appreciate Michael DeAngelo’. I was reading about this famous and gifted artist recently when I found out that every time Deangelo was going to create a new sculpture he would pick out his piece of beautiful raw marble, bring it into the studio and sit it on the sculptor’s pedestal and just stare at it for hours. Someone once asked him what he was doing and he explained that he was envisioning the masterpiece he was about to create inside the center of that raw marble so that all he would have to do is just chip away the pieces of marble that did not belong there.

That really spoke to me because I thought that is how God see us! He knits us together in our mother’s womb and he envisions what our lives will be like and what we will become. He has a wonderful and perfect plan of how we will become his masterpiece! But as we live our daily lives here on this earth there are times the Lord must gently “chip away” the pieces that do not belong there that may hinder us from becoming everything he created us to be. 

I imagine that once Michael DeAngelo was finished with his sculpture and he stood back to take a look at the work he smiled to himself and was pleased at the effort.

I also pray that one day we will stand before our heavenly creator and he will look at us and smile and say, “ Well done, my good and faithful servant. You are my masterpiece!”

So don’t get discouraged when you feel the Lord chipping away at the things in your life that are keeping you from him. Don’t be sad when you feel the gentle hands of your sculptor molding you and shaping you into the person he wants you to be. Although these times may be uncomfortable and perhaps even painful, in time you will see and appreciate the beauty that has been created in you in HIS name!

And may I just add that recently I have been "chipped and sculpted" in more ways then I care to admit. Lots of "chunks" and "junk" falling down around me. But...I keep reminding myself that one day I will look back and I will see those pieces that have been chipped away, on the floor of life, and I will be so grateful for the masterpiece God created in me!  In the meantime, you might just hear me say “ouch!” a few times.

Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you re the potter; we are the work of your hand. Isaiah 64:8