Find the Art Inside the Block

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

- Proverbs 27:17

A pick or chisel hitting stone, chips away a sliver at a time to shape, reduce, and create something new from something unfinished. A large block of granite slowly, under the slow but insistent chiseling by Michelangelo Buonarroti became the statue David, or the Pietà. Beautiful, admired works of art. But the block had to endure hours and hours of slow, careful chipping. As well, David endured hours of back-breaking exertion, breathing in fine particles of marble. He endured it because (as he and many sculptors and artists have claimed) Michelangelo saw the statue inside that block of granite.

He only needed to carefully free it from its prison.

A good brother or sister walking with us as we try our best to follow Jesus, is like that sculptor. It costs them to speak up, to call us out, to hang out, listen to and pray for us, to love us even with our mess laid out before them. Because they see the perfect creation hidden inside that messy block. They see the vulnerable child behind the walls we have erected around us. A good friend, as we have discussed in earlier devotionals, makes us better. You, in return, make them better. You often see exactly what God sees as possibilities in their life before they do.

Deep, man. Real deep.

I know, sorry. Let’s talk about art some more.

Righteous.

I always have wanted to be a writer. It took a long time to try it. I didn’t have anyone telling me I’d be good at it except a teacher or two. Eventually I knew to start on that road I needed to get with other writers, like-minded people who wanted to improve their craft and who, in turn, wanted to help me in mine. These were the folks who often succeeded, who put others’ needs and skill-sharpening before themselves. Yes, there were others in the writer’s group I had started who came and went quickly and for whom the act of writing never worked out. This was often because they came to get feedback, but never give anything back. Sharpening each other, building someone up takes a give-and-take between two or more people, where each wants the other(s) to succeed.

The employee who works to make his boss successful, succeeds. The boss who works to make his subordinate succeed, is the successful boss. Round and round. Iron sharpening Iron. Sculptors seeing the finished product inside the block before they start. An artist knowing the composition, even if in a general sense, as they begin to paint or draw.

An artist’s worst enemy, and a tool our spiritual enemy uses often, is fear. Fear of not being good enough or not being qualified to sharpen anyone else.

A successful artist is one who jumps into the work, seeing a goal and moving toward it (even if that goal only that he or she wants to make start something that will bring them joy but no other details). A successful writer is someone who writes, even when they aren’t sure what words will appear on the page that day. When Michelangelo began his greatest works, he had an image and worked towards it. He is an exception when it comes to many great artists, however. Van Gogh did not always know what he was going to paint when sat down to work. Yes, there were landscapes he felt compelled to put on canvas but according to people that have studied him, he did not always know what he was going to paint when he began. All he knew is that he needed to start. Stephen King rarely knows how a book will end when he begins writing (nor do I, to be honest), but rather enjoys “treating writing like archeology” and looking for that “fossil buried in the ground.”

The trick, one might say, is that even when they do not know where their artistic endeavor might lead them, they are not afraid to start and see where the process takes them.

When I was asked to lead a small group at church (we call them “Connect 4” groups), my first reaction was, Who am I to think I can lead or teach these men anything? If not me, then who? If not now, then when? If we want to be sharpened, to be built up in our walk with Jesus, the first step (after reading his Word and prayer) is to help someone else. I’ve been stumbling along this path to keep up with Jesus’ example, sometimes barely holding onto the hem of his robe, for decades. I’ll never get it right and I’ll never know everything. No one does. But I start. I know that I love these men I meet with, and want them to know You, Lord, more and more. Because of this, I have realized they love me and want me to know You, Lord, more and more.

I am sharpened even as I think I might be sharpening them.

That’s how life works. Imagine our faith walk not as a straight line, but a circle, back and forth we move up the spiral staircase towards becoming who God wants us to be in His Kingdom. We test the waters, try different directions, chip at the blocks of each others’ life (as we desperately hold onto our earlier metaphor) to reveal the true perfection of our friends — free them from the prison this world has built around them with self recrimination, fear, self-doubt, or sin (and think of “sin” in its broadest sense: anything we do which comes between us and a deeper relationship with God, which is pretty much everything… but that’s a discussion for another time).

We are all artists building God’s Kingdom here on Earth, preparing the way for Jesus’ return. Everyone is an artwork waiting to be set free to live with Joy in this Kingdom. Let’s find as many as we can while we have the chance.