November 20, 2011

My Lose It For Life conference brought home for me that pain is good. Pain is a necessary part of life. It’s a necessary part of discipline. It’s crucial to experience pain in order to grow, to get healthier, to exist on this earth. The pain makes the beauty sweeter somehow. The pain is a teacher, a tool in the hand of the Master sculptor as He shaves off the bits that need to go so that we can be beautiful in His eyes.

I remember a story I once read of how someone was lauding Michelangelo on his formidable sculpting talents. His response was to say that he only revealed the beauty that was hiding in the rock. He removed the unnecessary pieces so the true art within was revealed to the eyes of all. His artist’s eye saw the potential within and his hand alone was capable of bringing forth that indescribable beauty that had been there all along.

“In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.” -Michelangelo

So it is with the Divine Artist. Our Father’s hand is reaching out to us. His touch often brings pain as He shaves off the “rough walls” that are imprisoning the beauty of the His Spirit living in us. Do we want to walk around on this earth avoiding pain, making comfort our god, enjoying pleasures only, never growing, never leaving behind that which is childish, sinful, ugly, or putrefying? I have walked that walk. The pleasure may last for a season, but the result is a kind of crippling malaise and deep dissatisfaction with life. There is some level of understanding that too much of “good” thing makes us sick.

Pain is a requirement of moving forward and embracing God’s work in our lives. What an unpleasant revelation! But so necessary! It bring to mind Romans chapter six.

From Romans 6:

Believers Are Dead to Sin, Alive to God

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin.

The divine beauty of God’s Spirit came to reside within each of us when we surrendered our lives to the Father and embraced forgiveness through Jesus’ sacrifice. The death and crucifixion required of us is the hand of our Father in Heaven scraping away that which is sinful, superfluous, no longer appropriate, that which obscures the beauty of His life in us. The body of sin must be removed by His patient sculpting so that we “might walk in newness of life” along with Jesus. That newness of life is the true beauty that exists within us and can only be revealed by the Master Artist.

Daddy in Heaven, I choose now to submit to the pain that comes from Your hand as You remove the hard stone and reveal Your new life in me. I repent of withholding bits of myself from Your careful sculpting. I repent of seeking comfort instead of truth and new life in You. Please take me over completely and do whatever You need to do. I embrace Your work in my life. I long to see the beauty of Your Spirit revealed in me. Please give me the grace to stay in that place of surrender daily. In Jesus’ name, Amen.