Work in progress

Wendell Phillips said, “Every step of progress the world has made has been from scaffold to scaffold, and from stake to stake”. Of course there is a double meaning, for our world as we know it was as much formed on the scaffold of the stone-mason as on the scaffolds where truth died to spare the lies of thrones. Our own lives are also under the scaffold, an incomplete work whose time must surely come.

Many years ago I lay on the floor of the Sistine chapel to admire Michelangelo’s profound adornment of the ceiling. At the time the last supper was under renovation, masked behind scaffolding and workers sheets. For all the wonder of that equally famous painting, I was denied something of its true greatness.

At the time many other great buildings across Europe were undergoing renovations, so I found similar scenes of scaffolding and workers tools in a number of cities. Right now my own part of the world is facing similar refurbishment, so many of our buildings and other public places are encased in their own frameworks of scaffolding.

When God starts to work intensely with you, He also puts up scaffolding around you. He hems you in and restrains all progress, so you can stand still long enough for Him to reach your heart and renew your mind. That always leads to painful contradictions, where we just cannot seem to move on, for all the trying. Wave after wave of setback and disappointment will typically break over our lives and the winds of life will strip our branches to leave us standing naked in confusion and uncertainty.

It may take months, years, even decades for Him to chisel away the grime of sin and equip us for our regal purpose, for He is a master-craftsman. He will not skimp or shortcut the process until He has completely uprooted all that inhibits your potential. When He is done, and only when He is done, He will tear down the restraints, fold away the sheets, collapse the scaffolding and release us to take our rightful place – out in the sun, in open view of all who pass by.

I daily come across people in various states of crisis and the patterns are all so similar. I thank God for such patterns, as they enable the past to speak so relevantly to our present. Lives like Abraham, Jacob, Sarah, Ruth, Moses and Paul, all faced long journeys and years of scaffolding before God released them to become history makers and those great souls still make sense today, because nothing is new under the sun.

God’s intent is to bless you and not harm you. His plans for you are good. We have to believe that. One of the reasons Jesus walked on water and would not be made a king nor cast off a hill was because He found a place of perfect peace in the Father’s will. There is room enough for you there too, but you need to let Him finish what He is doing so that you can emerge as one set free to be what He destined you to be – then you too will make history.

(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net