I've spent the better part of the last few days in the prayer closet/storage room across from our room in the WPC. I've been working off a table sandwiched between a mattress against one wall and a pile of to-be-sold-or-donated clothing against the other. The walls are slightly pink and the light is very yellow. But it's starting to grow on me.
God's been rearranging my understanding of pursuit lately. It's been subtle and in small increments, but I feel a shift in my spirit. Something is starting to realign that was disconnected before.
I can't recall how many times I've heard it said that "our life with God is a marathon, not a sprint," but I think it has been one of those statements I say "yeah" to out of habit--not unlike the automatic extension of my leg when the doctor hits my knee with his small triangular red hammer. I still get into achiever mode with God and try to perform every day. (Thanks, Daniel Webb, for helping me understand why I do this. Signature Themes explain so much.)
That's not to say I don't still wake up every morning to "aim for perfection" or "walk in a manner worthy of your calling." Rather, I think I'm gaining an awareness that I need to let the deep, inner things of reality in God be fleshed out without being concerned about external performance. I may be wired to start every day at zero, but God is telling a long, beautiful narrative. It's woven seamlessly and flows perfectly from day to night and back to day again. It's less a faucet I turn on in the morning and shut off in the evening, and more a thundering waterfall cascading endlessly onto my head.
I want to really understand God as a storyteller and an artist. A wise man I've known once told me the rather well-known story about Michelangelo. Reportedly, when asked how he made his statue of David, the sculptor is to have said, "It is easy. You just chip away the stone that doesn't look like David."
I see God that way. He labors so faithfully, chipping away at the block of marble day after day, knowing David is inside, patiently working to see him emerge. I come to him rough and unformed, and He sets right to removing every piece that is not me. To Him, I am at once a discovery and being discovered.
I have to laugh at how absurd it must be, then, for the block of marble to be proclaiming every morning, "I'm going to be a statue today!" No, silly. You're a masterpiece in the making. Let the making happen. Instead of striving to force the art out of yourself, strive to be completely submitted to the craftsman. That's your task.
I want to settle into the pages, embrace the part He's written for me, and live well from cover to cover. No page-jumping or chapter-hopping. Every character with purpose. Every word an encounter. True to every comma, pausing at every period, right in step with the rhythm of the prose.
I'm not a statement. I'm a story.
As I wait for You, maybe I'm made more faithful
-Brooke Fraser
