As the humidity begins to descend upon St. Louis, I’m missing - and thinking about - colder days. (I’m naturally warm-blooded and the summer heat is brutal for those of us that tend to run hot.)
A couple of winters ago, I woke up to several inches of snow and an unexpected day off of work. So naturally, my roommate and I decided to abandon the laundry and dishes we could have been doing to go outside and play.
She set about building a snowman, while I began work on what was sure to be a rock-solid fort (which was really no more than a two-foot tall, three-sided box), should anyone challenge me to a snowball fight. No one ever did, in case you're wondering.
My friend's snowman, modeled after Frozen's Olaf, was remarkably good. However, Olaf, she decided, needed a friend. So, as I began the second wall of my little fort, she began to build an Elsa, the film's beloved Snow Queen of Arendelle. But not just any Elsa. A life-sized Elsa, standing over five feet tall.
At first, her sculpture looked like nothing more than a very tall but very uninteresting pile of snow. From my equally uninteresting snow fort, I made a sassy comment about how little her snow pile resembled the elegant, royal Elsa. The pile was lumpy and patched with muddy spots from where bits of the lawn had gotten packed into the would-be Snow Queen.
"I see what this pile of snow could be, Casey. Inside there is an Elsa." She was mocking me, but her humorously profound response got me thinking.
A pile of snow can't shape itself. It needs a sculptor - an artist that can imagine what that pile of snow could become and then can set about forming and shaping it into a masterpiece.
The truth is that we are much the same. Until God gets to work on us, we're really about as interesting as a pile of snow. I'm not much to look at. Neither are you. But He sees in you something incredible, something beautiful, something magnificent. He wants to sculpt and shape your life into a masterpiece.
Here's the difference between you and pile of snow. Unlike the snow, your role is not a passive one.
You have two options. You can try to sculpt your yourself. By the world's standards, you might even manage to make it into something decent. But it won’t last. You will never, on your own, become the masterpiece that the Sculptor has in mind for you and ultimately even your best efforts will melt away.
Your second option is to let the Sculptor work on you. You can stop trying to "create yourself," as the self-help industry insists is the road to becoming a masterpiece. It's not. If you want your life to be a work of art, you must submit yourself to the great Artist.
You might be surprised at what is revealed as He chips away at the icy exterior and scrapes away the muddy snow.
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