God's Good Plan Is a Process

One reason many of us fail to enjoy to adventure of the Christian life is because it is a process. We like end results more than we like the process that gets us there. But between today and the good end that God promises, we have to go through a process.

Looking through the eyes of an artist - As the story goes, one day a colossal cube of marble was delivered to Michelangelo's art studio. He walked around it several times, at first surveying it from a step back, then looking at it closely. He touched it with his hands and even pressed his face against the cold block of stone. Suddenly he grabbed a mallet and a chisel and swung mightily. Blow after blow caused small chips of marble as well as large chunks to fly in every direction.
Watching in awe, his apprentice screamed above the noise of shattering stone, "What are you doing? You are ruining a perfect piece of marble!"
With the passion of an artist with a vision, Michelangelo answered, "I see an angel in there, and I've got to get him out!"

Looking through the eyes of the Master Artist - My friend, God looks at you with the same kind of eyes Michelangelo looked at the piece of marble. God sees in you the image of Christ, and he wants to set the beauty free. The "process" is freeing that "angel." In the words of Jeremiah, the process of life involves plans for good and "not of evil, to give you an expected end" (Jeremiah 29:11 KJV)
From time to time, you and I may - like Michelangelo's apprentice - cry out to God in bewilderment and terror, "What are you doing? You are ruining a perfect piece of marble!" Such a cry reveals our failure to understand the Artist, His vision, and the process of His work. God picks up his hammer and chisel and, acting out of His infinite love and wisdom, starts chipping away at the piece of marble that is our life. He carefully knocks off the unimportant, the meaningless, and the excess. His chisel cuts away the flaws and removes all that is ugly. While at times the process may be puzzling and even painful, we can be secure in the knowledge that it is for good, not evil. God wants to make us Christlike and perfect. He wants to make us His masterpiece!

Learning from the old masters - For a perspective on these puzzling and painful times, consider another example from the world of art. To give depth to a painting, Old World artists would first wash their white canvases with black. Only by beginning with black could they later achieve the contrast, color, dimension, and depth they desired. After all, no painting is a masterpiece that possesses only one color or one intensity.
When the canvas of our life seems to be washed with black, we can remember the promise of Jeremiah 29:11, that the end will be good. We can let God's Word enable us to stand secure in the hope that when God completes His good plans, our lives will have greater depth, more interesting dimensions, and remarkable intensity.

-Elizabeth George, Loving God With All Your Mind, pg. 233-234-