PURPOSEFULLY TRIMMED

Laid out--ready to pick up and sew

My creative life over the past decade-plus has been defined by a five-inch square. Forty-nine (arranged 7x7) have gone into each of the hundreds of patchwork baby blankets I've sewn and given away to charity. I tell that, not to brag, but to suggest that day by day, week by week, we're assembling a lifetime of character. The squares of life according to God's plan will fit together in glory to Him. The ones that don't follow God's best plan will pucker and distort.

Just as I follow a “plan” in my quilting (which is super-simple in comparison with the quilts with blue ribbons on them at quilt shows!), God has a plan for our lives. And His plan is good.

I was reminded of that truth—“God's plan is good”—as I read Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' book, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures (Eerdmans, 1965). He pointed out that while God's plan is good, it isn't necessarily the easy life we'd prefer. We're raw material—piles of random fabric—that need trimmed to fit God's plan. But that's not a fun process. “God disciplines us for our good,” says Hebrews 12:10, “that we may share in His holiness.”

Snip, snip—the attitudes and behaviors we cling to, have to be cut away for God's pattern. That includes bitterness over life's trials, troubles, and chastisement. No surprise: that negative character quality gets special attention in the same chapter:

See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. (12:15)

Lloyd-Jones adds:

I know nothing that is so sad in life, certainly there is nothing sadder in my life and work and experience as a minister of God, than to watch the effect of trials and troubles on the lives of some people. I have known people who, before the misfortunes befell them, seemed to be very nice and friendly, but I have observed that when these things happen they become bitter, self-centered, difficult—difficult even with those who try to help them and who are anxious to help them. They turn in upon themselves and they feel that the whole world is against them. You cannot help them, the bitterness enters into their souls, it appears in their faces and their very appearance. (pp. 250-251)

No believer is immune from hardship or even spiritual chastisement from God. What matters, Lloyd-Jones wrote, is how we respond: with anger and bitterness or a trusting, humble heart.

God has the bigger picture of how we can serve and glorify Him. He has a good plan for all those random pieces of our lives. When I trim scraps into squares, then stand in front of the bed where I've opened my big cutting board and start laying out the “pattern,” I seek to create pleasing patterns of color and “motion” (plain v. busy fabrics). In short, I want them to be “fun” for babies to look at.

When I bring that analogy to my own life, and think back over how God has worked through my education and experience, celebrations and sorrows, I affirm that He makes no mistakes. And even though I don't understand why I had to go through certain difficult experiences, I know that someday it will be made clear. As Ephesians 2:10 says, I am His “workmanship,” created in Christ Jesus to do “good works.” Uniquely “patched together” in His master plan.