Living To Serve...

Living To Serve...12-4-25

One of my pleasures in life is painting. I enjoy taking the pieces of wood, drawing the image, cutting with my jigsaw or bandsaw, sanding, pickout out paints, getting my brushes ready, and painting. The process is relaxing, rewarding, and exciting. My husband calls our living room, my workshop. I paint while we watch television. I am together with him, carrying on conversations, but enjoying something being created. Sometimes, I am so lost in the process that I forget. I forget there is bad around. I see God's creations even in paint, board, and love.

When the piece comes together, I give it to the intended recipient, and wait. Yes, I do wait for their reaction. I love the process, the piece, and the joy that it may bring others. I told a friend of mine as I was working on the latest piece, that paying causes stress. You see, I want the person that receives my pieces to see the love and joy that was put into every stroke of the brush, every cut of the saw, and every curve that was sanded. I want to serve God. I want the piece to be a reminder that God's gifts are freely given. Yes, we can earn money from talents that God gives us, but they don't have to be for profit. There must be a balance in freely giving, serving others in any way that God directs us.

I have had those who have picked apart my pieces when payment was involved. In my eyes, there are flaws in every piece I create. I call those flaws, the character of the piece. I see the flaws. I see the areas where the paint drips onto another color, the lines that aren't perfect, the parts that needed cutting in a different way, the colors that probably should have been blended differently, and even where I tried to fix a flaw and made the area worse with the effort. I see all these because I can see the flaws in my own life. God sees our flaws. He sees every part of us that we try to hide from others. He sees our struggles inwardly with pride, with desires, with addictions, with self-worth, and with forgiveness. He sees all the flaws that make our character. He loves us anyway. He works on us as a master painter with paints and brushes.

On Wednesday night, we talked about the seeds and the sower parable from Mark 4. Our pastor talked about God pruning our thorns. I think my painting is a perfect example of the thorns that need pruning within life. Each character flaw sticks out to me like a sore thumb. But to God, it is an area that He will prune. He will lovingly, but sometimes with unwelcomed consequences, prune for my good, my benefit, because He loves me. This parable is one that touches me every time I read it. Because I see God's work in me throughout my life. I see His seeds being sown. I see myself vascillating between seed #3 and seed #4. I know the seeds are planted in good soil, but I know there are a few times that God will prune the undesirable to allow the desirable to flourish. I live to serve, but in order to fully serve, I will need occasional pruning. I see the charater flaws as in my pieces. God will prune me to allow me to become the fruitful vine that He can use in His garden.

Mark 4:18-20, "Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”