“Restore the joy of Your salvation to me and a spirit of willing obedience." ~ Psalm 51:12
At a Scottish seaside inn, some fishermen
were relaxing after a long day at sea; drinking tea and swapping fish ‘fables.’
One made an expansive hand gesture to
describe the size of the fish he claimed to have caught. As a waitress walked past with a pot of tea,
he accidentally knocked it from her hands, leaving an irregular, ugly stain
against the wall.
Surveying the damage, the furious innkeeper said, “That
whole wall will have to be repainted.”
“Perhaps not,” came a stranger’s voice from a table
nearby. All eyes turned to the odd man
who’d just spoken. “Let me work with the stain.
If my work meets with your approval, you won’t need to repaint it.”
He lifted the satchel from under his chair and approached
the wall inquisitively. Opening the bag,
he withdrew pencils, brushes, and some jars of linseed oil and pigment. He began to sketch and fill it in with smidgens
of color and swashes of shading.
Soon the picture of a huge deer began to emerge. Part of the splashed tea became a magnificent
rack of antlers. The main part of the blemish
became the stag’s powerful body and legs.
He signed the picture, paid for his meal, and
left.
It took a few minutes for the enormity of what had just
happened to sink in. In less than 10
minutes, art that spoke of mountains and freedom emerged upon a whitewashed
wall that previously knew neither.
The innkeeper’s eye’s brightened and his lips stretched wide
into a gaping grin as he examined the wall. “Does anyone know who that man was?” he inquired
admiringly. “The signature read ‘E.H.
Landseer!’”
Turned out, they’d just been visited by the legendary wildlife
painter Sir Edwin Landseer. Knighted by
Queen Victoria in 1850, Landseer was known for being able to paint with both
hands at the same time. He could paint a
horse's head with his right hand, for example, while painting its tail with the
left, simultaneously and quickly.
Just as Landseer had a penchant for converting stains into
masterpieces, so too does God!
When He looks at the “wall” of our life, God sees every last
stain and blemish; every ding, dent, and scratch. But rather than tearing it down for its repulsiveness,
God breaks out the ink and charcoal pencils.
His grace can transform our mistakes and disappointment into
a whole new masterpiece - less and less limited by our past foolishness and
traumas, more and more defined by the love for which we were created.
Heavenly Father, we are but clay in Your
hands and You are the potter. Mold us
and shape us into what pleases You. Change
us, transform us, perfect us with Your grace to reflect the Your image in all
our thoughts and actions. Amen
