The shiny surface echoes back my visage. The lips purse and slide to one side, eyebrows scrunch together, eyes reflect displeasure and my chest fills and expels heavily. “Ugh!” Suddenly, words come floating into my mind, “You are offending the LORD.”
He created this face, and here I stood criticizing His masterpiece. He made me the way I am because He desired it. Why? For a purpose. To love me and have me love Him back. For relationship. One that would glorify Him, because of who He is.
Who am I to criticize and scorn His craftsmanship? The perfect Creator!
But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some for pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
Romans 9:20-21 NIV
Do you wish you looked different? Prettier, taller, shorter, slimmer, more curvy, paler, darker, and so on?
We look at others and see greener grass. They seem to have it all; looks, body, confidence, money, happiness, and we buy into the age-old lie that God is not for us. He has blessed them more than us, so He must love them better, and be more pleased with them. Lies!
We are not God. Our understanding and vision are limited to one small mind that doesn’t even use its full capacity! What arrogance to believe we can know the mind of Almighty God, the Creator of ALL things! Who are we to think we can create better, imagine more, or understand the purposes of everything? We can’t know ourselves completely, even if we live for 120 years.
But the LORD does. Not only does He know and understand us to our core, but every person on this planet, all 7+ billion of them. He created each one with a unique purpose and orchestrates every life for His purpose.
God loves because that is who He is. He loves us each individually, the way we need to be loved. He made us unique, numbering each hair on our head, each freckle on our body, and engineering each DNA strand with perfect precision. There is nothing accidental about us.
Like an artist, musician, writer or architect, the LORD takes great pleasure in the process of His handiwork. He designed each of us with joy and love. None more than the other, but equally. This concept is challenging for us because we have flawed, sinful hearts. We judge, compare, and show preference, scrabbling for attention and self-glory.
But God, the Triune God, is perfectly complete in love, joy and relationship. He needs nothing and no one, yet chooses to love us. He is for us and cares deeply about us, not just here and now, but eternally with Him. The way He created us, the plans He has for us, and all He allows into our lives are for our best. It is all designed to draw us into a relationship with Him and grow us into the people we were originally meant to be before sin stained our souls.
When we complain about how He made us; the thin lips, coarse hair, wide hips, skinny legs, heavy sweating, weak eyes, etc., we offend Him, His creativity and design.
If we grumble about our circumstances; where we live, our abilities/talents, finances, family and so on, we are saying He is not trustworthy.
The Master Designer, the Lover of our souls, is faithful and worthy of our praise, respect and unswerving love. Look to the heavens and His mastery there, the beautiful dance of planets and stars all intricately orchestrated. This is our Creator’s canvas, but it is simply window dressing that points to the delights in store for us when we walk into eternity with Him. If He is faithful and trustworthy to make the sun rise each day and keep the moon in its place, to cause unequalled beauty to spring from the ground and rain to fall from the sky, we can trust His plan for us.
Sisters, when our mirror image appears to be “less than”, remember who created it and who you are; Daughter, Princess, Beloved and unique masterpiece!
Be well!
Patricia