"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."
James 1:2-4
I love to paint. I will be the first to admit that I am not very good unless I sit down and take a lot of time (meaning weeks) to work on a piece. So usually when I paint it is simple, yet has some sort of meaning and doesn't take me more than a couple of hours to complete. I find painting extremely therapeutic and soothing. It helps to relieve my stress, and to express emotion I may not be able to in other ways.
Tonight, I finger-painted for the first time in a long time. I love how paint feels on your hands and how much you can do with it on the paper. As I was creating my "masterpiece" this evening I came up with an analogy for life.
We are God's original masterpeice. The events and emotions in our lives create the colors that go onto the canvas. Many times in life, we want to be happy 24/7. We don't want to deal with mad, sad, hurt, ashamed or afraid. We just want to be happy. But in order to create his masterpiece, God needs a variety of colors. He needs the red of pain, and the blue of sadness to create purple, the color of royalty, to crown you as his prince or princess when you return to the kingdom of heaven. He needs the yellow of happiness and the blue of fear to create the spring of new life of green. What if we only let him use the color of happiness? How boring would a plain yellow canvas be?! We need to stop fighting these emotions and let the master artist complete his vision. It may look messy right now, but one day He will step back and say "It is finished!" and it will all become beautiful and clear.
Tonight, I finger-painted for the first time in a long time. I love how paint feels on your hands and how much you can do with it on the paper. As I was creating my "masterpiece" this evening I came up with an analogy for life.
We are God's original masterpeice. The events and emotions in our lives create the colors that go onto the canvas. Many times in life, we want to be happy 24/7. We don't want to deal with mad, sad, hurt, ashamed or afraid. We just want to be happy. But in order to create his masterpiece, God needs a variety of colors. He needs the red of pain, and the blue of sadness to create purple, the color of royalty, to crown you as his prince or princess when you return to the kingdom of heaven. He needs the yellow of happiness and the blue of fear to create the spring of new life of green. What if we only let him use the color of happiness? How boring would a plain yellow canvas be?! We need to stop fighting these emotions and let the master artist complete his vision. It may look messy right now, but one day He will step back and say "It is finished!" and it will all become beautiful and clear.
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