Paint By Numbers

I am really not much of an artist. Either I have no skill in this area or have long since stopped trying to develop it. In 5th grade, my art teacher refused to put my project made of clay in the kiln, she felt it was just so bad that it was not worth the 'waste' of clay. Go figure, mom went without a clay toothbrush holder.

As I ponder how difficult is is for me to be artistic, it causes me to get annoyed at the dude on PBS I used to watch in high school who would create this beautiful and majestic mountain scene using nothing but a putty knife. Now that is deflating.

My one successful art memory that I have is a paint-by-numbers that I got for Christmas when I was probably around seven or eight. Painting is actually pretty fun. The image of the completed painting is etched in my memory. It was a tiger staring at you through tree leaves. The colors of the tiger contrasting nicely with those of the tree. Here is the problem with paint-by-numbers projects - it simply requires that you know colors and number and can pair them up. So none of the colors blend together, it is just a hodge podge of swirls, with each color distinct from its neighbor. Even though you knew it was a tiger, it had a lot of streaks in various shaded of yellow.

This is kind of like the picture of God that I had painted through my life. And it is possibly the most major change that I have had to make, peeling the layers and painting a new picture. If it's not the most major change, it is at least the most fundamental. Other changes within me would not be possible without painting a new picture.

I knew things about God. For other people, I could help them blend and understand, pointing their hearts in the right direction. To me that is so ironic. But in my life, everything remained distinct. My experience of God was painting by numbers, it was academic with very little heart, very little of myself, which is required of a real artist.

Not that heartless followship is what I wanted or thought was right, but I struggled to trust because of my poorly formed portrait of God. In my reckoning, God's attributes had no blending or relationship to each other. Yes I knew God loved me, but I held that distinct from His grace and mercy. I knew God forms us, sanctifies us, but I held that distinct from my own efforts. I knew this world has trials, but again, it was distinct from his love. Really, I could go on and on about how I had painted the wrong picture for myself.

Bottom line, love was based on performance. It could be lost or decreased depending upon your behavior. Not only with God, this perspective influenced how I gave and received love in all my relationships. Starting over required a new picture, no numbers to paint with.

Part of it required realizing that in coming, Jesus painted a picture of God that we could understand. He became the image of the invisible God, as Paul wrote to the Colossians. A verse that I understand in a new way. Look to Jesus. Because of his flesh, He understands frustration, rejection, and loneliness. For some reason I had tried to brush those things off, rather than embracing them as giving me the opportunity to walk the same road as my Savior.

Jesus loves his disciples regardless of their performance. Success or failure, His love did not waiver. It is not our performance that God is impressed by, it is the level of our trust. While I knew I was saved by grace, I was still caught in the trap of trying to merit God's favor. Rather than delighting in God, reaching for Jesus living inside of me, offering God my stillness, I was bent on becoming indispensable to God. Instead of ferreting out my root sin (which would indicate weakness and failure), I tried to hide it like Adam and Eve covering up with fig leaves. Like God doesn't know the truth.

Following Christ is not a role to play properly, it is a life dedicated to trust. Accepting His promises and realizing that He will come through on all of them, often despite our efforts. Trust means that there will be times of failure, letting God and others down, but that is what grace is all about. Trust is realizing that God wants to delight in my love for Him just as much as He wants me to delight in His for me. Trusting means yielding to the Spirit of Jesus living in me, allowing Him to know and develop my true self. That is my picture of God.