Paint Water
Megan Breedlove Sometimes, as a mom, I make decisions that I’m afraid I might regret later. For instance, a few weeks ago, the kids and I went to Wal-Mart to buy some watercolors. I had passed some up at Target, hoping for a better price at Wal-Mart. So I promised the kids that on the way home from the Y, we would stop and buy the watercolors at Wal-Mart. The only problem was, Wal-Mart’s price was even worse than Target’s.
As I stood there thinking, “Now what am I going to do? I’ve been promising them paints. Okay, so a dollar difference isn’t that big a deal,” I noticed some other paints right next to the watercolors.
I don’t know what you call this kind of paints, but they’re the kind you have to dip a brush in, with no water involved. They’re thick, and goopy, and they look like if they spilled on your carpet, you might as well not even bother trying to get the stain up. I looked at these paints, and then, in a brief moment of insanity, I heard myself saying, “Hey, kids! How about these?”
“Yeah!” they shouted, and the deal was done.
We brought the paints home, and I’m happy to report that the painting went quite well. All four kids wore their “craft shirts” (cheap t-shirts I bought for a dollar each at Dollar Tree) to protect their clothes, and we had a vinyl tablecloth protecting the table. Nobody spilled anything on the floor, and nobody painted themselves or each other—much. The kids had a blast, and I deemed the project a welcome success.
At one point as they painted, I took the cup of paint water out to the sink and began to pour it down the drain. I watched the ugly brown water as it streamed from the cup, leaving a couple smears of bright colors on the inside where the paint hadn’t quite dissolved. I thought about how beautiful those colors had been in the hands of my children—the designers—but how ugly they were when messed up and mixed together.
It’s the same way with our lives. In the hands of the Designer—God—the colors of our lives are beautiful. They make not just pictures on plain white art paper, but masterpieces, created by the Master Artist.
It’s when we get involved and try to produce the art ourselves, that we mess things up.
From where I stood at the kitchen sink, I couldn’t see my children’s paintings. I was completely unable to see the pictures, but I trusted that they looked nice, at least to the designers, and that was enough for me. Oh, if only we would do the same with God. If only we would realize that the picture looks just like the designer wants it, and accept that, without trying to paint it ourselves.
We would never presume to tell Monet, if he were still alive, how he should paint. Much less would we ever take the brush from him and start completing the work ourselves. Yet we do this very thing to God, for one of two reasons. Either we don’t like the way He’s making the picture, so we try to make it turn out the way we want it to be, or we look only at the paint water, which is ugly, and we therefore assume the whole thing is a wreck.
But when God paints, He never makes a mistake. When He is allowed to paint without interference, His designs are always grand and glorious. It’s when we try to straighten out His work that we mess the whole thing up.
Friend, you and I are not the Master Artist. God is. Let’s trust Him that He knows what He’s doing, and cooperate with Him.
After all, what do you want? Do you want a picture that looks like an amateur painted it, or do you want a masterpiece?
Isaiah 55:8-9— “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.