Isn’t She Lovely
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For artists, there’s nothing quite like the day a painting is ready to leave the studio and go on display to the public. It’s their masterpiece; they’ve labored over it with a purpose in mind and are excited to finally share it with the world. It’s incredible for the artist to be at a gallery or a show and to hear the response of those who see the painting for the first time. “Isn’t She Lovely” is one of those paintings I love to display. I’ve painted it several times—each one with a unique touch. It’s a piece that I’m very proud of as an artist.

Hope For The Future

God the artist, your loving Heavenly Father, is also proud of you. He’s excited about your life and how it reflects Him and all that He is. In His sovereignty, God sees and knows your past, present, and future. But here’s an even more incredible truth. Because God is God, He has already added the finishing touches to the masterpiece of your life, even before it’s completed. There’s nothing more encouraging than to understand that God has already put the finishing touches on your life as His masterpiece. It brings you undeniable hope for the future! Yet as a real-life work of art, the display of your life as His masterpiece remains both limited and empowered by your Life Palette.

The Passion Touch

Any artist who has ever painted a masterpiece, be it in their own eyes or in the eyes of critics, will tell you it was birthed from a passionate pursuit burning within to paint the perfect painting. God has a passion, too, to see you live as the masterpiece He created you to be. Because of that passion, His love leads Him to cast out into the storms of your life, during times of your hopelessness, to find you and return you to the safety and warmth of His presence. It may be that you’ve drifted so far off the course of His design that His light seems like a small beacon on the horizon—so far away you can only hope it’ll somehow find its way to you. However, if you will allow Him, He will come, rescue you, and lead you in the right direction.

Living As His Masterpiece

God hasn’t painted the canvas of your life to just leave you on your own to make the best of things. He has created you as His masterpiece with utmost skill and care: “You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.” (Psalm 139:13-14) Plus, God is doing everything in His power to get you to the place where you are living as His workmanship in the absolute assurance of the knowledge of who you are in Him, with the goal of being all He originally intended you to be. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul declares that “anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” “New person” in the original language means that you are recreated to the original design God created you to be. As the artist of your life, God will pursue you with His love and light to the very end of your life, passionately desiring for you to reflect the beauty of His handiwork as His masterpiece.

Next Steps:

Choose one thing you can do today to begin to reflect the beauty of God’s handiwork as His masterpiece? Write it down, share it with someone and prayerfully ask God to give you the courage and power to do it.

(Adapted from my book Life Palette)