She walked about with a face downcast,
clueless, faithless, and sometimes hopeless. As usual, she had the smile on her
face, the smile that ‘confused the masses’ and made it seem like all was well-
but it was not.
All along, she had faced it all: life’s
highs and mostly its lows, heartbreak, heart rent, shock, disappointments,
maybe even un-appointments. Through it all, she had carefully, albeit
gracefully carried the burden with her and made it seem like, well, all was
well, but it wasn’t. The only thing she wanted was a perfect understanding of
this so-called God that the pastor spoke about, the God that the choir sang
about. But, surrounded by a million people, who are apparently supposed to be
His representatives, she failed to clearly see God.
And so she carried her burden, her
anger, her pain. Every day she looked up to the sky and failed to decipher how
He, who apparently so loved the world would torture her like this. Sometimes
she wondered why He bothered to go to Calvary because the only thing she wanted
was one who would help her carry her load, as opposed to dying for her because
heaven knows that what she needed more was a constant friend as opposed to
someone who had hang on a tree some 2000 years ago.
And so the search continued, craving for
attention, craving for recognition, craving for a sign that the Omnipresent was
there with her, but nothing. It hurt the more she thought about it. Could it
have been a lie all this time? Does Jesus really care? Did He really leave foot
soldiers?
All she ever wanted was a picture of
God, a picture of grace, a picture of love. She sought it but found it not. You
know why? It was not because God does not exist anymore, nor was it because He
was not as powerful too… no! The picture of God could not have been painted
because the person with the paint brush had refused to use it. Rather, the
person with the paint brush had used it to paint another picture!
It is quite disheartening to note that
God would choose you to paint a picture of Him. Disheartening because it is a
sacred trust, whose impact is almost never realized. So what did y’all think He
meant when He said your parents shall be like God to you? You thought it was a
light-hearted ‘bring em up in the fear of the Lord’ kinda thing? Well, guess
what? He meant just that- not the light-hearted thing, but the ‘they shall be God to you’ kinda thing!
That when a child is born has their
parent as their first point of contact should remind you of how Adam felt when
he awoke from nothingness. That the child looks a little like you should remind
you of ‘created He them in His image’. That your breasts get all sour when you
child has awoken sure should remind you of Isaiah 49:15!
You, mama and papa are the first picture
of God your child will see. If you get the paint brush wrong, your mess up the
little girl or little boy’s perception! Girls and boys struggling to see God in
their life do so because their father-figure was a mess!
And so what if you are not a parent? Do
you think you profession of Christianity is just enough to help you slide into
that innocent girl’s DM? Ever heard of the line ‘you are the only Jesus someone
may ever see’? Well, guess what, they mean just that!
There are places God would rather be,
there are hearts God would rather touch but He seemingly doesn’t because He has
put you there to do the comforting, encouraging and blessing. But alas, the
only picture of God we paint is a flawed one.
Leonardo Da Vinci does a better job!
