Making a Mess into a Masterpiece!

“Observe how the lilies of the field grow...” Matthew 6:28

This is one of the most beautiful and reassuring passages in the Bible. Just reading through Matthew 6:25-34 made me peaceful. We can see how God takes care of the birds, how beautiful they are, the wild flowers in the field that grow even without care. “They do not toil or spin, yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these!” Jesus goes on to say we should not be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. “Each day has enough troubles of its own.” 

Sometimes when we go through our Facebook feed or group chats, we can grow anxious. So many worrying things about our country. All the reports of the ubiquitous Chinese presence of military aged men in the provinces and in the metro, the corruption scandals, the ballooning debt, the poor showing of our students compared to our Asian neighbors when we used to be at the very top of the heap! The list is long and getting longer. We can say our country is in a big mess and can get messier still. Sigh. 

I used to do art workshops. I tell the participants to make a mess with the paints and mark makers. “The messier the better,” I would say with a smile on my face. And when they follow the instructions I give them, a masterpiece will emerge from the mess. 

Human beings are naturally mess makers. We can make a mighty mess of our lives even without meaning to! In the first reading for today, 2 Chronicles 24, the mighty prophet Zechariah told the people: “Why are you transgressing the Lord’s commands, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have abandoned the Lord, he has abandoned you.” 

God wants us to prosper, to live well, but we do not follow the good instructions He gives us. So our lives get messy. And like what happened to the Israelites again and again even up to now, our country gets into a big mess. 

There is only One who can save us. We can depend on Him to make a masterpiece out of our lives. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28