From Slab to Masterpiece

“Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” Philippians 1:6.

In 1463, the sculptor Agostino di Duccio was commissioned to produce a statue from a large slab of marble. Tragically, his apprentice made a careless mistake which left the marble disfigured. Horrified, Agostino declared this project hopelessly ruined, and abandoned the beautiful piece of stone. Reje...cted by its master, the rock stood in a courtyard for the next 38 years. In 1501, a 25 year old artist named Michelangelo came upon the abandoned stone, and saw its beautiful potential. He began chiseling away anything that didn’t lend itself to being a masterpiece. ‘When he was finished, there stood the awesome statue of David, one of the greatest sculptures of all time’ Experiencing God, p 47.

We all have the potential to be chiseled by the Spirit or disfigured by the flesh. How does one allow the world to hold the chisel even though the Master made the beautiful stone? One way is by allowing the opinions of the world to mold and chip away at your character. Another way is to forget that God created you uniquely and specifically to form you into His masterpiece. It is our Father who assigned us our lives, purposing us for beautiful works according to His will. He will neither reject us nor abandon us when we fail because He sees our beautiful potential. He methodically and tenderly begins chiseling away the imperfections and flaws in our character. He sees how a gentle tap here and a more firm tap there will turn the abandoned into the chosen...the marred into the beautiful.

You can be confident that no matter how your life seems, it is a masterpiece in the making. The best thing that can ever happen to us is for the world to abandon us so that God can make His divine and perfect mark on us. What a beautiful sculpture we will become in the hands of the greatest Sculptor of all time.

‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!’ 2 Cor. 5:17