God's Masterpiece

I was talking with my friend about a project he had to do for an art class. He said he had to think up something to put on paper and then pass it around for others to work on it as well. Jacob said that by the end, "It wasn't even completely mine." I was thinking about how awful it would be to pour your heart and soul into something for so long just to have someone who can't even see the vision or purpose of it to come and put their prideful two cents in. How awful it would be for me to see the end of it and grievously say to myself, "This isn't completely mine."

Let me tell you how I think God views us: God's Word says that when he created Adam and Eve they were perfect. We are God's most prized pieces of art created to point to Him in our every quality. We are his handiwork. God sat there and dreamed up exactly who He wants us to be. Then, he made it a reality. This I feel is exactly what we do when we create something. We dream it up and then use whatever we can to make it a reality. We are his most prized masterpieces and He gets to have a relationship with us! I remember making a collage last semester and thinking about how great it would be if I could ask it how it's day was going. We get to talk to him about the world He created for us!

To connect with Jacob's story, I thought about how the World comes into our lives and passes us around to put a twist on what God originally created. Things like our beliefs, security and identity find authors ignorant of the purposes we were designed for. I thought about what God must feel when our beauty becomes twisted to mirror the world and turn into something He never intended for us to be. How he grievously must say, "This isn't completely mine."

I also thought about how when a creator has a certain idea in mind for the creation, there is a certain perseverance that pushes the creator to stop at nothing to make it into exactly what they have in mind. It's all the lines that get erased, all the melodies that get rewritten, all the photos that get retaken. When the creator has a specific idea, settling for anything less than what was dreamed up isn't even an option. Who wants to settle for less when you know it could become something much greater!?

I believe this is how God feels toward us. We are daily being molded into what God dreamed up for us to be. Lisa taught me that when Paul says in Philippians 3:12, "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me," he is pressing on to take hold of exactly what made Christ pursue him: God's dream of what Paul would be. God reminded me that He won't ever give up on me. That he won't stop until I become the woman He dreamed up for me to be.

God won't settle, but sometimes I do. I thank Him for the grace to see when I do settle so I can let him do His great work in me.

Thanks for dancing with me, Dad.