The Brush

"The Brush"

Life started out like a canvas,
And God started painting on me.
But I took the paintbrush from Jesus
And painted what I wished to see.

The colors I painted kept running,
And the objects were all out of size.
I had made a mess of my painting;
My way now seemed so unwise.

So I brought my painting to Jesus.
All the colors, all the pieces so wrong.
In the markets of earth, it was worthless,
But His blood made my painting belong.

He worked with no condemnation.
Never mentioned the mess I had made.
Then he dipped His brush in the rainbow,
And He signed it, "The price has been paid".
When I gave the brush back to Jesus,
When I gave the brush back to Him,
He started all over life's canvas to fill,
When I gave to Jesus the brush of my will.

(Chuck Millhuff and Ben Speer)

When I was a teenager, three beautiful ladies in our church often sang this song.  It touched my heart so much back then, and it still does to this day.  How many times have we "taken the paintbrush from Jesus and painted what we wish to see"? I know I have.

So often, I've told myself that I was praying for God's will in my life, when I was actually praying for what I wanted.  We may pray "according to your will", or "thy will be done", when what we really mean is I want this now, and I want it like this.  That's not how it works.  God will answer our prayers, but it will be in His time.  It will be His plans, and those plans might not be what we really wanted.

But when we don't get the answer we want, we keep praying over and over for the same thing.  And sometimes, God will give us what we want only for us to realize that it's not what we needed.  And sometimes what we want comes with a price.  This is where faith comes in.  We have to trust that He knows what He's doing, and He's doing what's best for us; we just may not see it at the time.

The good news is that if you'll just "give that paintbrush back to Jesus", He'll fix the mess you've made.  And everything will turn out just fine.

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that
                    love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose."
                                        Romans 8:28