Time, Trust, and Painting

Time.

We often have funny perceptions of time, especially when it comes to the concept of eternity. Time is like a painting. Technically, one stroke is painted before another. At the end, however, no part of the painting IS before any other. It's important to remember because I often get lost in one form or one color. Though the end product by no means devalues individual shapes, it makes no sense to get stuck on any one.

In other words, I started painting a little while ago. It has been a weird experience, but I enjoy learning this new skill. One of the biggest lesson I had to learn was to consider all the forms in relation to each other. At first, I would start with a shape or a color in one region and paint a different shape elsewhere on the canvas. I would get stuck later on because I would have to fit them together, but I never planned on such a thing. They were just disparate little images that I didn't want to connect.

I still have plenty to learn, but I've started making backdrops before plopping images on. Honestly, that's a solid life lesson right there: the separate pieces make more sense together if they have a background, a context. I do so often try to pry the pieces of my life apart and handle them as individual problems. Instead, I should realize it is a life that I am living, a life unto God.

I don't trust Him very much. I look at one tiny, little form in the corner of my canvas, and I complain. I see some dark stroke or some muddy color, and I think the whole painting of my life is ruined. And, obviously, it must be the Painter's fault.

I don't trust Him. I want to trust Him. I beg that I may be like the man in Mark 9: "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!"

Then, we come back to time, the large tapestry of our lives that is not yet fully woven, but we still judge it prematurely. Have you ever watched one of those accelerated videos of an artist (painter, carpenter, or really any kind of craftsman)? At the very beginning, it looks like awkward blotches or chintzy chips of wood. If we stopped there, we get crappy works of trash. Roll forward a few minutes, and it starts to take shape. At the end, we see impressive works, sometimes masterpieces!

Even now, I can rarely perceive how the painter got from blotches to portraits—or the carpenter from chips to furniture. Even when I see the process before me in two minutes, I can scarcely connect the blotchy choices to the finished product—but that's exactly my point. Of my life, I am not the Craftsman. I can hardly grasp two minutes of painting. How the blazes would I grasp the decades of my life?

Time is relative; at high speeds, this is an observable phenomenon. But time is also relative in the sense that getting stuck in any one instant will cripple you. However, since we can't grasp eternity, or even just the extent of our lives, we are left with the option of trusting the Painter—or not trusting Him.