The Artist is Still Working

The world that is, is not what was intended to be. We were meant to eat without having to wrestle our bread from the earth, to build without breaking our bodies to do it, to love without our hearts being broken. But the world was warped and broken by sin, and all things were bent away from their original intention. Death crept in through the cracks that had opened in the universe, and with it came things that were never meant to be: sickness and war, and famine and disease.

Although God hated these things, he could not remove them from the world without nullifying the choices that his people had made, from which these things came. He would not take away our free will and make us slaves, unknowing and unquestioning. He would not delete any good thing from his perfect creation. Instead of erasing, the Artist took up his tools again and continued to create.

He continued to shape his bent creation until the ruined shapes of the things he made began to form patterns new and even more beautiful than they had been. Where he found war, he made courage and self-sacrifice. Where he found hunger and rocky soil, he made perseverance and creativity. Where he found sickness and broken bodies, he made compassion and empathy. Where he found sin and death and separation, he made a bridge with his own broken body.

Where a straight line had been tangled, he wove a Celtic knot. Where the mirror was broken, he made a mosaic. In every corner of his wounded world, he crafted a new rightness and fitness out of what had been made wrong. He has made a time for everything, and he has made all things beautiful in their time.

Respond in Prayer

Dear Father God, You are making all things new. Renew the bent and broken bits of myself today, that I might become who you intended me to be and have a part in your work redeeming our world. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Michael Bonikowsky