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His Masterpiece
by Deacon Gene
I have often told people, “If you focus on the moment and do your best, God will do the rest.” God knows that even our best efforts will not be sufficient to create His masterpiece. Do we even understand what God is doing in our life right now? No! But, if we allow Him to do it, we are allowing Him to complete another step in His vision for our life. He wants us to do the best we can with each moment as He gives it to us.
Why do not we do our best and trust that God will do the rest? One of the most common problems that could cause us to NOT do our best is that we feel that our present task is insignificant in the big picture.
The fact is, with every breath we take, we are given another opportunity to be ourselves in the best way we can. We can use a moment for good, or we can let it pass with little consideration and never experience that exact gift of grace.
It is much like painting a picture. The artist can place each stroke to the best of his or her ability and end up with a masterpiece. A “potential” artist can putter around and end up with what looks like the dabbling of a child at play.
We need to ask ourselves this simple question:
“When I get to the end of this journey of life, do I want to be able to look back on my life and see God’s masterpiece, or would I be satisfied to see a picture that looks like an incomplete work?”
If you would prefer the first option, you will need to use every color on your palette and give your best at every moment, that your contributions to the big picture are your best efforts to allow God to create His masterpiece.
In the spring of 1997, the members of Saint John the Evangelist Parish, Lakemont, Altoona, Pennsylvania, had an experience which is unlike anything I have seen before. We had the privilege of watching a master artist create a mural on the back wall of our new church.
The mural took shape over the course of almost two years. Unlike many artists who want to keep their work hidden until it is finished, this artist, Allen Michael Capriotti, allowed us to follow every step of the process. Week by week, we watched as the barren canvas began to bear the marks of a skilled craftsman at work. First, the fine strokes of the pencil, then the tint of the initial coat of glaze, followed by the first bursts of color as the mural began to come to life. Finally, the last coat of glaze brought out its real beauty. That amazing process requires that the artist has the picture in his mind before he starts.
What we saw was a life size painting of the Raising of Lazarus as recorded in John 11:41–44.
One day, as I pondered that beautiful, finished work, I began to ask myself if our life could be compared to that canvas. Just as our artist had that picture in his mind before he even started to work on the canvas, God had a picture of our life in His mind even before we were born.
Each moment of our life, God makes another mark on the canvas of our time on this earth. If we fail to respond to the work of His hands, those marks may just turn out to look like the dabbling of a child at play. But, if we allow the Lord to work in His way and TRUST that God knows what is best to complete the picture, the final image created by our life can be His masterpiece.
