By Steve Higginbotham
Have you ever seen Bob Ross on television? Don’t recognize the name? He’s the artist with the fuzzy hair. You know, the guy who stands in front of a canvas with his color palette and paints? I understand he died a few years ago, but they air his television show, teaching people how to paint.
While I could do without his comments about “happy clouds” and “happy trees,” I have been amazed at his abilities. In a period of 20 minutes, this man could transform a blank piece of canvas into a beautiful work of art. On many occasions, I would see him make a stroke with his brush and think, “Aw, he’s really made a mess with that stroke” only to be proven wrong. What appear to be mistaken strokes eventually blend into something beautiful.
Don’t you think it would help us if we could remember this when it comes to the working of God in our lives? At times, God allows things to happen to us that appear to us as though no possible good could come from them. Sometimes events may even make us feel that God has blundered with our lives.
Well friends, God doesn’t blunder. Rather, as a skillful artist, He eventually brings first one and then another influence to bear upon the canvas of our lives until something beautiful and purposeful begins to emerge.
When life is difficult and a bit ugly, hang in there. Don’t change the channel on God too soon. If you do, you may miss something beautiful.
“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).