".....And God, who makes everything work together, will work you into His most excellent harmonies." - Philippians 4:8-9 (MSG)
Last week I had a great conversation with one of my closest friends, Tiffany. I have to shout her out because this girl has truly pushed me and encouraged me to be a better Christian and our friendship is the epitome of the scripture, “iron sharpens iron.” We were talking about the things that hold us back from reaching our fullest potential and we both expressed fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure and fear of what it looks like right now. That “fear of what it looks like right now” is the clincher! So often we can’t see past our current situations and current circumstances, therefore we pick up an attitude that it’s impossible to get beyond this point. We allow the enemy to trick us into thinking that “this is as good as it’s going to get” and “you gotta deal with the cards you’re dealt” and this is a big fat LIE! When we accept new life in Christ, we are given a new hand of cards. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” While talking to Tiffany it was like I had an “aha” moment:
So it's like as if God is the painter and we're both standing in front of a blank canvas and God says, "if you trust me I will take this blank canvas of nothingness and make it into a masterpiece, but I need you to have faith and never doubt that despite what it looks like, I'm working it all together to make a beautiful picture." So after we say yes, I trust You, God starts painting. However, a masterpiece takes time...so naturally, we begin to peek over his shoulder and look at the random mixes of colors splattered on the canvas and say, "God what are you doing!? This looks a mess!!" Our prospective of this current picture now gives the devil an opportunity to step in and say, "you're waiting on God to turn this into a beautiful picture but look at what it looks like right now...a hot mess!" Then we turn and look at the picture again and we're like you know what it IS a hot mess! At this point we start trying to take the paintbrush back from God because clearly it doesn't look like He knows what He's doing because "right now" it just looks like a big blob!
"God what are you doing!? This looks a mess!!!"
But…..we forgot the first question God asked us, “Do you trust Me?” See, when we begin to sit back and allow God to work on our blank canvas of nothingness, and allow Him free reign to do whatever He wants to do, we see over a period of time how each little blob, and splatter and mixed color are all really working together to create this big beautiful picture....because He knows exactly where and when each color needs to fall into place. God is the best painter I have ever come to know, I'm so glad He asked little ol' average me if He could work on my blank canvas of nothingness. Whenever I begin to get fearful of “what it looks like right now” I begin to look at my once blank canvas and see that even those dark blobs, and splattered colors of paint are all working together for my good. J
-Leah
Bible Study
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Awww I love the analogy you used in this post :) It made the story that much more clear.
ReplyDeleteAww thanks for reading girl!! :)
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