The Hand Of The Master

“So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart; and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands.” (Ps 78:72 AV)

This is a particularly powerful verse when one considers the context.  This verse is one of great hope for those who desperately wish to be completely transformed into Christlikeness, but find ourselves failing more than we would like to admit.  The entire psalm is the history of Israel’s failures to trust the LORD and walk in obedience.  The psalm relays God’s response to Israel’s failure.  He corrects them.  He restores them.  He instructs them.  And He provides leadership to motivate them.  God never abandons Israel.  He never will.  Then we read the summation of the entire psalm in the last verse.  God knows what He is doing and He will guide us into glory as only He can.  He will work with us, molding us more and more into Christlikeness even though we disappoint Him time and again.  What I see above is great hope!  Hope that regardless of how far I am from what God wants me to be, He will never stop shaping me into what He wants me to be!

In High School, I took a lot of art classes.  We worked with a lot of different mediums.  We worked with paints and pencils.  We worked with stone, clay, and wire.  Sometimes, it was simple sketches with pencil and paper.  At other times, we build sculptures.  Because we were limited to class time, our work took weeks to complete.  There was another reason we took our time.  If we rushed, our work would not turn out as we wished.  Depending on the material, what was done in a brief forty-minute time slot had to dry and set before we could continue.  Otherwise, the work would be unstable.  At other times, we needed to walk away and give our imagination a rest so that when we came back to it, we had a fresh perspective.  We could work on the piece from a different angle.  There were other times when we walked away and let the work rest.  As it did, it settled into what it naturally would be.  We could complement what it had become and add or take from it to make it more attractive.  There were times when the piece needed to age so when we worked on it again, the hardening process would protect it against undo damage from later work.  Art requires imagination.  But it also requires a lot of patience.  A piece rarely comes in an instant.  It is a process of adding and subtracting over an extended period of time until the artist is convinced there is nothing left to do that will make the work more perfect.

We are much more than a piece of art to the LORD.  We are souls for whom Christ died.  We are His precious children whom He loves individually and infinitely.  He desires our conversion more than we ever could.  When we fail to trust or fall into sin, as much as it bothers us, it bothers Him infinitely more.  Yes, He is offended.  It hurts that we disobeyed or we do not trust Him as we should.  But even more so, like an earthly father, He is moved with compassion because He knows what we could be.  He knows what is possible and when we fail or fall, we do not reach that blessed potential that we are granted in Christ.  Our Father will never give up on us!  Never! By His skillful hand, like an artist shaping a masterpiece, He will guide us through life converting us into Christlikeness until we take that majestic image of Christ as our own.  He will never cease.  He loves us too much to quit.  Praise be to God that He is the God of all hope!  Praise be to Him!