We Are Slow Masterpieces

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” (Ephesians 2.10, NLT)

When my husband and I were house hunting, we drove down a sleepy dead-end street in the town I had chosen out of the myriad of western Chicago suburbs. The town itself felt sleepy, a quiet spot where we could hear roosters and goats across the street yet still get to a Target in ten minutes flat. In other words, my kind of town.

A For Sale sign hung in the yard of a 1940s-era tan house, all strange angles and wide 70s siding. Masterpiece it was not. The detached garage looked tired. To a woman with her heart set on a yellow and blue Victorian, it was ugly with a capital U. Honestly, to anyone it was Ugly.

My husband, who had no particular dream houses dancing in his head, even pronounced it so.

But I decided to look beyond the house, literally. Behind that ugly house stretched an acre of backyard, an empty green palette for two people with three small children and a couple pairs of green thumbs.

We bought the house.

It’s taken twenty-one years to create what we envisioned when we first saw that backyard. Weeds get fewer every year. Each garden bed looks a little more like our planned masterpiece. Some don’t, though, and we start again, overhauling all our work in the quest for cottage garden perfection (which is a bit of an oxymoron). We begin new projects every year, reminding ourselves not to take on more than we can handle, but the siren call of sky-blue delphiniums and juice-dripping plums always wins.

Just this summer, the city lopped down four giant elm trees in our front yard (their right-of-way), and our beautiful shade garden suddenly became a full sun garden in one afternoon. It necessitated an entire makeover, moving every baking shade plant elsewhere and putting sun lovers in.

I wonder if that’s what God envisions when he looks at me and you. Just as when we fell in love with the backyard we wanted to buy, God tells us he looks beyond outward appearance and sees the promise in each one of us. Sometimes, he even has to look past the ugly with a capital “U,” but he chooses to.

“The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7, NIV)

David, the person God is speaking of in the above verse, took time to mold into “a man after God’s own heart,” as Scripture describes him. He was immature and unskilled in kingly behavior. He failed to raise sons who would honor God and even committed adultery and murder. Yet God stood by his choice—there was something there he could work with. He would create a king out of this man, despite the times that would require a complete makeover.

Paul wrote to the Ephesians that God is making them into masterpieces. Often, we expect God to hurry, to make us perfect now, to eliminate our flaws and spare us our failures. But that’s not the way masterpieces work.

The making of a masterpiece takes years. It takes tearing out what once looked good and making it better. It means that what worked in one season might look completely different in another.

And we are not masterpieces that have only outward value. We are God’s masterpiece to do the good things he planned. That’s the entire point of creation, Paul tells us.

Isn’t it encouraging to know that the Lord considers us his masterpieces, that he’s looking beyond whatever facade we put up and whatever ugliness we don’t want to admit to? He looks beyond all that to the perfect vision he created. It’s OK that the picture is going to take time. He’s got all the time in the world—and more.

Lord, thank you that you see what you have planned for me and not what I too often see of myself. Help me to see as you see. Help me to stop berating myself for what I’m not but gracefully to allow you to create what you have in mind. Give me the grace to allow others the same time to grow. Amen.

Scripture for Reflection

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. (1 John 3.1-3, NIV)

Reach for More

Think of someone to whom you may not be allowing the grace and time to grow into God’s vision for him or her. That person may be your spouse, child, a friend or colleague–or it may be you. Think of one encouraging word you can give that person today. Ask God to help you have the long view and speak promise into him or her.

Jill Richardson is a writer, speaker, pastor, mom of three, and author of five books. She likes to travel, grow flowers, read Tolkien, and research her next project. She believes in Jesus, grace, restoration, kindness, justice, and dark chocolate. Her passion is partnering with the next generation of faith. Jill blogs at jillmrichardson.com.