His Masterpiece Clearly Seen

I've been thinking about heaven a lot lately. And here's the thing. I think I have no delusions about who I am, but I'm pretty sure I am only scratching the surface. I know that, absent my Redeemer and Teacher and Friend, and His Holy Spirit mightily at work in me, I am a wretch. I am, not the worst of sinners-- the Apostle Paul says that title is his --so that easily makes me something waaaay below that if I was to compare. Point being, I know me. I know the messes I have created single-handedly and with assistance from others. I know the lies I have told and the glory I have stolen. I know the time I have wasted, the things I was supposed to be obediently doing, and the things I have rebelliously done in their stead. I know I have killed my mother a thousand times over with my frustration and snarled demands. I know I have undermined with my impatience the things God is doing in my husband. I know I have placed burdens on my children they were never meant to carry and spoken words to them they should never have heard. Despite all of this, I will one day enter heaven, knowing I belong there, welcomed with open arms. 

As if that isn't mind-blowing enough, what I will recall of my existence on earth-- if anything at all-- will not be sanitized in some way, only the holiness highlight reel, but will be completed, brought to fruition. I will not necessarily know all things, but I will know how God used (in my life) and uses all things for His glory. 1 Corinthians 13:10-12 says:

But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

We will know clearly. That's not to say we will be omniscient, for only God is thus, but in a fullness of purpose sort of way. Does that mean my failures, my curses, my fornications, my jealousies, my busyness, my tirades, my selfishness, my selfish ambitions --all will be as if they never existed? They are now! The blood of Jesus Christ and His righteousness is the only reason I belong in heaven to begin with. But all of that evil, all of those sins will be seen by the light of God's hand on them. I will see the end result, the wonder He wrought with the utter garbage I handed Him.

When my husband and I remodeled our kitchen several years ago, it was important to me that we repurpose old things --not in the sense that a cabinet would be sanded, refinished, and used as a cabinet, but that that which was not by nature a cabinet would now be so. The top of a hutch was disassembled to become a shelf. Wall decor was now a pot rack. And, if I am to be honest, when I forget the origins of these things, their former nature, it is difficult to appreciate their value today. When I look at them with conventional eyes, I see an amalgam of some not so gently used items, of secondhand and landfill-fated possessions that will have to work 'cause that's how it is. But when I study them through the eyes of the bold and innovative artist that selected each one and carefully converted them --warts and all-- into what they are now, I see rebirth and re-creation, the offal of a time that was, used for the beautification and function of what is now.

God is an artist like no other. He takes the sins we hand Him and uses them to weave His tapestry which, I believe, will become apparent to us when we enter His heavenly presence. We will see clearly His redemption of all things. The humility that he whittled from my broken form when my lies were brought to light. His mercy that washed like watercolors across the barren pages of self-righteousness. The love that He grew when my anger and shame were planted deep within the holes in the palms of His hands. His masterpiece made from some of the worst elements anyone could offer a King but hung gloriously in Heaven and waiting for me to see.