Maybe we should stop praying this way and do this instead …

Michelangelo — a sculptor, painter, and architect, among other things — was considered the greatest living artist in his lifetime. So you may be familiar with one or both of the following quotes attributed to him …

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”

If you put a block of marble in front of most of us and told us to sculpt something, many of us would panic. Not Michelangelo. He saw masterpieces in his mind, and carved the stone until what he had envisioned had turned into reality,

I think God often puts “blocks of marble” in front of us in the form of challenges. Our automatic response is, more often than not, to immediately pray for God to deliver us from this challenge! Instead, God places the stone in our lives with the intent that we make a masterpiece of it.

A block of a marriage …

A block of children to parent …

A block of friendships …

A large block of church family …

A block of the least, the last, and the lost …

A block of work …

… lots of blocks from which He would like us to carve something. Some will be masterpieces, others more mildly beautiful. But all work to be crafted by us, but inspired by Him.

He doesn’t want to deliver us from the stone, He set them into our lives so we can make something beautiful out of them, all to His glory! Again, like Michelangelo, who was also credited with saying, “Many believe — and I believe — that I have been designated for this work by God. In spite of my old age, I do not want to give it up; I work out of love for God and I put all my hope in Him.”

So instead of always praying for God to deliver us or do something for us, maybe we should pray for the inspiration and steady hands to carve something beautiful out of what God has put in front of us. Maybe we should strive to turn the challenges God allows in our lives into art that glorifies Him.

If you did that, how could that change your life?

Scotty