Average

I’m pretty average.

I mean it. That’s not false humility or anything. I’m legitimately very average.

Most people like to think of themselves as “above average” (according to a number of surveys).

Not me. I’m as average as they come.

I barely broke a 3.0 GPA (in high school or college). I was on the varsity basketball team – but I didn’t start. I was second or third off the bench. I was a student council representative, but I never ran for office – and I for sure wouldn’t have won if I had. I wasn’t popular or unpopular. I lived in the middle.

My middle brother was the smart, hard-working one and my younger brother was the artistic, creative one.

I was, well, nothing in particular.

That used to bother me.

But I felt a lot better when I read about the disciples Jesus chose.

They were pretty ordinary. A handful of them caught fish for a living. One exploited his own people by collecting exorbitant taxes for Rome. Another was a militant knucklehead that wanted to overthrow Rome by force.

(Honestly, Jesus choosing those two to be His disciples and then calling them to love one another is a lesson in its own right.)

Here’s the point.

They weren’t the best and the brightest.  In fact, they were quite average.

If Jesus could use guys like that to change the world, then maybe He could use me too.

Think about it this way.

A paintbrush is quite an ordinary thing.

But in the hands of a capable artist, it can be used to create a masterpiece.

Most of us are pretty ordinary.

But an ordinary person in the hands of an extraordinary God can change the world.

If you feel ordinary, join the club. If you feel insignificant or insecure, get in line.

But – in the hands of a master Artist – what might God do in and through you? How might He turn your life into a masterpiece if only you’d submit to the guidance of His brush?

Brush Strokes

A couple years ago I spent an afternoon at the Art Institute of Chicago.

I’ll be honest. I know nothing about art – but I know enough to be impressed and rightly awed when I encounter a piece by Monet.

I don’t remember the piece, but I do remember standing for several minutes admiring the beauty of his craftsmanship.

I took a step closer and looked at the individual brush strokes.

It was incredible to think that each of those strokes was made by Monet himself.

But the longer I looked at the brush strokes, the more I lost the big picture.

It occurred to me that there was nothing particularly masterful about any one of the streaks of paint.

But when you put that stroke alongside hundreds – maybe thousands – of equally unremarkable strokes, you get a masterpiece.

I don’t know what brush stroke you’re on right now.

It may be the warm yellow stroke that tells of a sweet season bursting with possibility. Or the blue tones of a restful season inviting you to slow down. Or the anxious red that speaks to a tense situation still unresolved. It may be the dark grays of a storm that threatens to engulf you.

Whatever it may be, don’t mistake one stroke for the whole masterpiece. There’s more to you than the stroke you’re on now.

Watercolors and Pencils

I got coffee with an artist friend of mine a while back.

I have no artistic ability whatsoever – at least not in the fine arts of sculpture, drawing, or painting.

She was showing me samples of her most recent work and made an interesting comment.

“Drawing is easy. You learn the techniques and skills and then you’re in total control of the end result. Watercolor is much harder. You really can’t control where the paint goes – you can only guide it.”

I think that our relationship with Jesus might be more like watercolors than it is like drawing.

Jesus could, of course, control us at every turn. He could strip us of our free will and force us to bend to the strokes of His pencil.

But I think He might be more interested in letting us flow under the guidance of His brush.

That doesn’t mean following Jesus is a free-for-all. That doesn’t mean we can wander wherever we will.

It just means there might be more freedom than we think there is.

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (Ephesians 2:10, NLT)

What if that masterpiece is supposed to be a watercolor in which the artist and the paint work together? What if God gives us direction and allows us to explore the edges of His plan?

Don’t get me wrong. This is not relativism. I’m not advocating for a faith that allows us to do whatever we want.

I’m just suggesting that God is not a puppet master.

I’m suggesting that God invites us to participate in our relationship with Him.

I’m suggesting that God wants to lead and guide us so that our lives become an absolute work of art.

We can’t do that on our own – but with the brush strokes of a master Artist we can become beautiful.

Scaling Up

The year after I graduated from college a friend and I took backpacked through Europe (yes, we were the stereotypical millennials in our early twenties).

We started in London, made our way down to Paris, enjoyed an extended stay in Switzerland where another friend was then living, and wrapped up in Rome. We packed in a lot of experiences, made a lot of memories, and learned a lot of lessons.

I particularly remember visiting the Louvre in Paris. We only had a couple days in the city and so couldn’t spend too much time meandering through the massive art museum.

We really only wanted to see one exhibit.

The Mona Lisa.

It took us thirty minutes or so to make our way from the front of the museum to the giant room dedicated to Da Vinci’s masterpiece. We stopped along the way to admire other paintings and sculptures, but the closer we got to the Mona Lisa, the more excited we got and the more quickly we moved through the other exhibits.

Then, there it was. The Mona Lisa.

We stood there in awe.

But then the awe wore off.

It was enclosed in a huge glass case with armed guards stationed on either side.

I was also struck by how small it was.

I mean, really small.

I don’t know the exact dimensions, but I’m pretty sure I have a coloring page from my niece larger than the Mona Lisa (and personally way more valuable).

Now, don’t get me wrong. The Mona Lisa is a masterpiece and now, looking back ten years later, I wish I’d enjoyed the moment a little more.

But here’s what I thought as we made our way back out to the Paris streets.

So often I think something is a lot bigger than it is. I think something is a lot harder than it is. I think something is more of a problem than it is. I scale it up in my mind.

But then I get up close and it turns out to be much smaller than I imagined.

All of the anticipation – all of the worry, all of the anxiety – was a waste.

I bet I’m not the only one. I bet you’ve experienced that before. I bet you’ve looked back on a situation and realized it wasn’t quite as big as you imagined it would be.

We all have faced and will face our share of truly big problems.

Let’s not scale up the small ones.

Bending Steel

I took a blacksmithing class a couple nights ago.

Tony, our instructor, handed us each a steel rod about eight inches long.

“In the next two hours,” he said, “we are going to turn this shapeless piece of metal into a beautiful piece of art.”

We put our fireproof gloves and safety goggles on and Tony led us to the furnace.

Steel, it turns out, is not all that malleable. It doesn’t bend easily – even under tremendous weight. That’s why they use it to build bridges and skyscrapers.

But, when immersed in a white-hot fire, the steel begins, almost imperceptibly, to soften.

We plunged our rods into the burning coals and waited. Once they were glowing red, we took them to our anvils and began hammering and bending them into something else – something new.

I only had a few seconds to work before the steel cooled and it needed to, once again, return to the fire. It felt like a long time before there was any noticeable progress. But, little by little, it began to change shape.

As I pounded at the stubborn metal, I thought about the stubbornness of my heart. I thought about how unbending I can be. I thought about how, sometimes, the only way for God to mold and shape me is to allow me to be immersed in fire.

By the end, the steel was almost unrecognizable. The old useless gray rod had been worked into a piece of artistic twists and elegant curves.

You can see the finished product here. It is nothing to boast about, but if I – a complete novice – could draw any beauty out of a piece of steel, imagine what God could draw out of a heart of steel.

He doesn’t always soften us by fire. He doesn’t only mold and shape us in midst of the flames.

But, when He does, I don’t want to resist. I want to take the fire when it comes.

I want to be softened.

God, soften me.

What We Have Left

The hall burst in applause as Itzhak Perlman appeared on the stage, took up his violin, and signaled to the conductor.

A couple of bars into the first song, one of Perlman’s strings snapped. It would have been quite understandable for the great violinist to bring the concert to a brief halt so that he could change the string and continue as he had rehearsed.

But, that’s not what he did.

He paused for a moment before signaling to the conductor to start from where they left off.

Perlman resolved to perform his solo with only three strings. He adjusted the notes in his head to accommodate the deficient instrument. When he was unable to find a comparable note on another string, he improvised. The piece held together spectacularly.

When the final note rang out, the audience sat in silence for just a moment, astonished at what they had just witnessed. Then, once again, they erupted into wild ovation.

Perlman waited until the noise died away before addressing the eager crowd.

“You know,” he said, “sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much beautiful music you can still make with what you have left.”

Perlman had full awareness of his weaknesses and full mastery of his strengths. He did not ignore the former, nor did he dismiss the latter.

We all have broken strings. We all have others still intact.

Artistic wisdom requires that we be both aware of our weaknesses and then learn to play to our strengths.

Only then can we make beautiful music with what we have left.