He Who Began

  In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 1:4-6)

 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. (Jeremiah 18:4)

 As a crafter, I learned that when I’m in the middle of a craft project, I often go through what I call the “Yuck Phase.” Whatever I’m making is too hard. I’ve made too many mistakes. It’s just not working. It and I are failures! I feel a bit like that today, but the failure isn’t a craft project. It’s my life, and it’s partly the time of year.

Before Christmas, one of my neighbors hung a picture that his wife had painted of the manger scene. He mentioned to me that she spent fifteen hours working on a painting that was maybe 18X24 inches. I’m pretty sure I’ve spent more than fifteen hours working on my two wall hangings that aren’t done yet. I’ve seen paint in fast forward. They add colors that make no sense and seem to go over the same places over and over again. A lot of that is part of doing art, but I suspect there’s Yuck Phase involved.

A friend shared the “He who began a good work” verse this morning, and it’s a timely reminder. We are God’s craft projects. He’s a master craftsman and He doesn’t make mistakes. But that doesn’t mean that the thing He is making doesn’t go through phases of imperfection that are a necessary part of becoming a masterpiece. It took 16 years for the canvas and paint to become Mona Lisa. At some point, she didn’t have eyes or that smile.

We like to think that by the time we’re 18 or 21, the masterpiece is complete. We’re all grown up, after all. As we get older, we figure out that age 18 or 21 is just the beginning. I’m coming up on a big number for my birthday, a new decade, and I’m not only trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, but I’m wondering how I made it through life knowing, being, and doing less than I do now.

I’m definitely in what I’d call a Yuck Phase for my life. But they are necessary and natural. The thing we need to remember is that we aren’t the artist. He knows what He’s doing, and if we don’t have eyes to see, or if our mouths are a bit misshapen and ugly at the moment, it’s not our destiny, it’s a phase. If He takes more than 15 minutes, or 16 years to make all of the stuff that doesn’t make sense come together as a masterpiece, He knows what He’s doing.