Paint covers the flat, white sheet. Big strokes, small strokes, detailed dashes with red, blue, and green…He focuses, intent…
Head down, eyes fixed on the paper before him.
Like Piccasso, He taps into something divine and creates a masterpiece that’s all along, his alone to define.
His parent enters. She points to his creation. The little boy sits up, hands in his lap. “What did you make?” She loudly announces, interrupting herself with words with sharp edges…
Without waiting for him to speak, she dicctates her description, interpretation, and definition of what she sees; ranting, declaring, describing for this child, what she alone thinks he was making.
He sits, patient out of love.
But sure enough, she doesn’t stop, doesn’t breathe, never looks in his face of the artist himself.
Instead, she continues to rail the boy with her opinions. She takes her best shot, giving random suggestions based on her own life, own understanding and past, good and bad experiences.
Then, she stops. He turns the painting over and walks away.
She missed it…in her commands, manipulation, bossy, details instruction-giving of her own child’s story.
Everything he was trying to say becomes lost…trapped in the corners of his desperate dreams to contribute to the world and make something beautiful…
All because another needed answers, that instant.
And he wasn’t allowed a moment, valued for His talent, given a voice of his own to birth what he had created.
Conclusion
Sadly, I think we can be like this mom, as Christians. We can act sincere and understanding…
But then, when push comes to shove, when our lives fall apart, when we feel hurt or anxious…We bombard the Great Architect, the Renound Painter, the Perfect Piccasso, with our ideas of how we want life to go.
Yet, He sits silent, holding the canvas of our lives. And we miss the fullness of His creation…
Written by His hand, authored by His grace, as the storybook of our lives.
Isn’t the Creator the only one who gets to define His Creation?
So, why do we run to Him with OUR plans? Demand we want life one way? Insist our prayers must change a God whose already painted a picture, we might not yet understand?
- What if we approached God differently than this mom did the little boy?
- What if we came to God humbly, instead of standing over Him, commanding?
- What if we got low and sat at His feet like a student, not the teacher always telling?
- What if we stopped trying to change the painting, demanding and dictating God, insisting He create what we think He should be making?
- What if we accepted His masterpiece with gratitude and thanksgiving? Acknowledged His work in Creating, instead of damanging He rearrange us?
Wouldn’t our hearts accept our dealings more, our lives be saturated with more peace and appreciation? Wouldn’t we step down from our pedastals with grace and permission for Him to be Lord?
Would our lives flow more beautifully if we stopped asking God for reasons, and stepped back far enough from the image to see what He might see in us…
Know what He might know?
Then, as He teaches us….
- Could we accept each stroke with dignity and grace?
- Could we stop insisting we know, and find beauty in simpl
y being? - Could we give to our Creator every ounce of control?
- Could we then watch Him unfold His plans and purposes in our lives, whatever they may be?
My guess is, it’s easier to be the mom, standing, demanding, controlling and dictating the little boy to paint what she wants to see….
Or the created, foolish enough to think we can demand the Potter to make something we want.
But, if I have learned anything….it is that God delights in a meak and contrite spirit. He shows the one listening, every point of beauty behind every movement He makes across the canvas…
If we simpy let Him.
Dear God,
Make me the student, sitting at your feet. Teach me to listen, and go only where you lead.
Change my heart, and focus my eyes so that I might see; your ways, your purposes, your plans, and your declaration of me.
I want to be painted by you, for you.
I want my life to be a canvas called by you, created for your beauty.
My life is but a brush in your hands. Use it, God, in whatever way you want.
I am willing. I give you all authority as the Maker, Creator, and Piccasso of my life.
