Saturday, August 31, 2013

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." 
Romans 8:28 is a well-loved verse that I remember often, and this morning I was delighted that I found a fun illustration for it:

Does this look a bit like pictures you drew as a kid? Sometimes our lives are like that.We have this picture of how things should be in our lives. Then "Bad Things" happen. Things don't go according to plan.

There is a fun little game the kids would play in church, where we'd bring little note-sized scratch paper and something to write with. The game starts with one of us drawing some random things on the page, then hands it to someone else, challenging them to make a picture out of it. Sometimes we even have an idea in mind when we hand them the scribbles.

As you can see, this doesn't quite fit the idea of a house-tree-sun scene. I think that Romans 8:28 is kind of like the picture challenges. We have our life's plan pictured in our minds... we have ideas about how things should go. Then life hands us squiggly lines and random shapes and they simply don't fit our plans. They might even ruin them.
But we can take our messed up lives and hand them to our Creator and Master Artist, and be amazed by what He can do with our lives.
So get to know God better, love Him and put Him first in everything, and watch as God's plan is allowed to unfold in your unique life, in special ways made just for you.