I sit at the easel. Autumn light streams through the window at my back as leaves release their hold and drift to the ground.
I brush paint upon the canvas. I step back and look. I’m unhappy with my work. This first layer looks flat. The depth I know it needs is not present as of yet. Shades of blue make up the background. Hints of pink bleed through the sky. Still, all I see is one dimensional. What I picture in my mind is not translating onto the canvas.
I have learned over the past two years in my art lessons that layers are needed to bring dimension to my art. Layer upon layer I add pastel or paint. At times I brush strokes and quickly realize I must remove them. At others I must step away and look at the art from a distance. Sometimes looking at it from a distance for several days before I pick up the brush yet again.
When I hurry to finish a piece I risk losing the depth it is meant to have.
As I stepped back once again from a piece I have been painting off and on for months I wondered if this is how God looks at me sometimes. Patiently waiting to add the next layer.
Each experience. Each hurt. Each joy. Each grace. They are layers.
We become so impatient to move on to the next thing. To reach our goals. To find our purpose. Yet we must seek Him and give the creator time to build the layers that will add the depth to make us into who He created us to be. Just as a painting doesn’t become a painting in one sitting neither do we become the person God created us to be overnight.
So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12, 13 NASB)
We are to work out our salvation. When we work something out it requires attention and not just attention for a time. As we seek God, as we grow and learn to shape our own will to His we work out our salvation. It isn’t a task that we finish in a matter of minutes or hours. It takes a lifetime. Rushing to form it only hinders. Layer upon layer an image emerges.
Isn’t this faith? Learning to walk in the unknown and saying yes? Allowing Him to form the layers that will mold us until the image of who He created us to be becomes visible?
How are you walking in faith and saying yes to His molding?
