As an artist cleans his palette, he’s left with palette scrapings—the leftover mixed paint that becomes gray and is no longer usable where pure color is needed. You may feel there are similar colorless scrapings in your life, choices that have caused you pain and led you so far off track that you feel your future has no destiny.
Know there is hope! You can clean your Life Palette and start over. It is possible. God is the God of new opportunities. In Isaiah 43:19 He says this: “For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?” As long as you have a pulse, He has a destiny for your life—and that destiny will always include you becoming His masterpiece. It is never too late!
Three attitude checks will position you to clean and begin preparing your Life Palette:
1. Don’t blame God.
When you look at the canvas of your life and are not satisfied with the results, it’s easy to blame God by falsely believing He made you with certain character flaws or weaknesses that have resulted in your life looking like a forgery rather than a masterpiece. You can easily continue to blindly hope something will change.
The attitude of blame is something you must clean off of your Life Palette. You may say, “But you don’t know my life story.” And you’re right, I don’t—and I don’t need to. This is about knowing and understanding God as your loving Heavenly Father, as the artist who proclaims you to be His masterpiece. When you blame Him for things in your life, you’re simply saying to Him that He’s not doing a good job as the artist and that you, frankly, could do better. Yet the truth is He’s willing to do whatever is necessary for you to live as His masterpiece. Paul tells you, “God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” (Romans 5:8) It’s not His fault. You determine what He has to work with on your Life Palette.
2. Don’t worry about what others think.
Who decides what constitutes a masterpiece? Vincent Van Gogh once said, “Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.” He understood the public can be too subjective; too influenced by their self-centered passions. In the same way, others in your life—your parents, friends or bosses—can’t decide what’ll make you a masterpiece. The only one truly qualified to decide if a work of art is a masterpiece is the one who painted it, the artist: the person who studied art, worked on their craft and talent, and has truly developed their palette to see when a painting needs improvement, or when it is ready to display.
3. Trust that God knows what He’s doing as the artist.
God, and no one else, knows how to make your life into the masterpiece He created you to be. Remember Ephesians 2:10. You can trust God to make you into exactly what He’s destined you to be as you do your part of aligning your Life Palette with what He, as the artist, determines will make you a masterpiece. Like a novice artist wants to know the successful artist’s secrets, tricks, and even favorite tube of color, you must be willing to learn and develop the discipline, technique, and understanding required to develop your Life Palette.
Next Steps To Clean Your Life Palette:
Consider the three attitude checks to clean and begin preparing your Life Palette:
- Are there areas of your life where you blame God? If so, take a moment, confess them to Him, and ask Him to help you change from this moment on.
- Are you worried about what others think? How can you begin today to trust God as the only one qualified to decide what makes you a masterpiece?
- Do you completely trust that God knows what He’s doing as the artist of your life? If no, why not? If yes, describe why.
(Taken from Chapter 1 of my book Life Palette)
