I’ve often imagined what it must have been like for Leonardo Da Vinci to stare at the blank canvas that would eventually become the “Mona Lisa.” What must have been going through his mind before the first brush stroke. I have also imagined whether or not anyone saw it before it was completed. Did Anyone walk in halfway through its completion and criticize his work? Did anyone say “I wish you wouldn’t have used those colors…I don’t care for it. Or - “Her facial expression seems a bit…dull.” That type of criticism would seem laughable now (especially knowing what the Mona Lisa would eventually become.) However…even though we are Gods workmanship (Ephesians 2), we tend criticize ourselves and others during this process of formation. See where I’m going with this? If we believed what He believed - that He is in the middle of creating a masterpiece - How would that change the way we think about ourselves?
It’s a liberating experience to think of God as an artist. Think about the joy he must have felt in creation, the care that was taken in the formation of the cosmos, the thoughtfulness and energy it would take to sculpt the mountains (that are still forming even today.) And for us...created in his image…we are not exempt from this ongoing creation. We are asked to participate in this joy as we trust that he is carefully working. Sometimes these thoughts can be hard to reconcile with our everyday lives (especially with things in our past that we regret.) During those times - I often think about what the psalmist wrote: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well (Psalm 139:13-14).
But what about this familiar internal dialogue?
”Am I worth more than the mistakes I’ve made?”
”Was it all a waste?”
“Can any good come of that?”
The questions go on and on…but the invitation we are given in scripture is to be continually formed by the loving hands of a master artist. Isaiah saw this when we wrote, “Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter, we are all the work of your hand” (Isaiah 64). And he uses everything. Every experience. The things you are proud of. The things you regret. There is nothing that will escape his ability to use it for our good (Romans 8). And like any master artist, He will finish what he started (Philippians 1).
Consider your life. All of it. The good and the bad. Every moment is a color in the palette of His workmanship. He uses all of it. And He’s making something beautiful.
