You Are God's Masterpiece

  Have you ever done a very complex art project?  Maybe a painting, a sketch, a sculpture?  Maybe you've watched someone do one.  But either way, you know that any beautiful project takes time and oh so much patience.  It takes precision, inspiration, delicate strokes, harsh corrections, bright colors, dark shadows, long periods of waiting for paint or clay to dry, a few breaks here and there so that you can come back with a fresh vision, and through it all... perseverance!  From where you start with the project to where you end is vastly different.  Your paper, canvas, or clay has gone through many changes!  Sometimes, during your project, the piece didn't even resemble your intended end result! Not even close; but you hopefully kept guiding the piece and correcting the imperfections until your result was perfect in your sight!
  I love thinking of my God as an artist.  1). because he is and 2). because it's a great way put your own life into perspective.  You are His masterpiece and he is sculpting you every day.  The Master Artist is working slowly and diligently to make your life beautiful.  Think about this whole earth for a second.  God made this whole earth in 168 hours.  He took 7 whole days to create this whole beautiful earth and that is a long time to spend on an art project.  Just think of all the time he is spending on YOU!!  Doesn't that have to mean that we are far more beautiful than even this massive, creative and wonderful earth??  We are inspired by the likeness of God!  Those delicate strokes or bright colors can come as soft joy, friendship, new life, finding your soul mate and many other things.  Harsh corrections or dark shadows may come as tragedies, hard breakups, unfair relationships, divorced parents, someone close to you moving out of your life and pretty much anything hard.  Sometimes we feel as though God has forgotten us, especially when our wounds are fresh and we want to heal.  We cry out to him and wait.  I believe in those moments we have to trust the process and let the paint dry.  If we moved on now, the paint would smudge with everything else and nothing would be clear in the end; we wouldn't know why the artist made the strokes that he did.  We persevere and the end result is the most beautiful project of all time: Your soul.  Complete and lacking in nothing.  We live for eternity with our God and all is complete. You will only see the whole picture and the process will now seem worth it.  You may not even remember some of the strokes that seemed unnecessary at the time.  Anything beautiful takes time, patience, and perseverance.
  My broken prayer for you is that "He may grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans" (Psalm 20:4) and that you remember "We are God's masterpiece.  He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he has planned for us long ago" (Ephesians 2:10).