Psalms 103:1-5 (NIV)
1 Praise the LORD, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
2 Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—
3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,
5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
While working on a painting, an apprenticed artist got to thinking that he could improve on a particular skill his master was teaching him. It seemed to him like a smart shortcut. But as he tried his idea, things literally got ugly. He kept going trying to correct the problems he was causing. But things quickly went from bad to worse. He finally gave up. He turned to his master, who, seated beside him, had been quietly witnessing the debacle and, humiliated, handed him the brush.
It was clear to the both of them that the initial idea for the painting must now be seriously modified to circumvent the mistakes.
Slowly and methodically, the master went to work. The apprentice looked on in stunned amazement as his mistakes were meticulously and perfectly integrated into a developing scene that was so beautiful, that there is no way the apprentice would ever want to go back to the original idea even if that were possible.
Friends, the messes we make in our lives seriously mar what God had in mind for us. And I consider it a grave error to imagine that the nasty things that happen when I disobey God are somehow ordained by God. No, like that artist apprentice, I think I can improve on what God is asking of me and end up generating a heap of trouble. I bring pain and heartache not only into my life but into the lives of many others as well.
That is not God’s plan based on the simple fact that he said, Don’t do that.
But what is God's plan is that he has anticipated every single one of my insolent decisions from eternity past and already has a way worked out for overcoming or integrating every single one of them into something so beautiful that it will amount to “…a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” Isaiah 61:3
Such is our great Redeemer.
