Paul's Perspective

Paul’s Perspective
Philemon 1.15-25

‘I have sometimes been told’, said my friend, ‘that God is an artist, and that we are his paintings.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and actually I think Paul says something like that, in Ephesians 2.10: “We are his handiwork.”’

‘Well,’ my friend replied, ‘that’s as it may be; but I sometimes think that, in my life at least, God is the kind of artist who hurls a paint-pot at the canvas from the other side of the room, and then stands back and says to himself, “Now, that’s very interesting; what shall we do next?”’

We can’t very often look at the details of our lives and see exactly where they fit into the larger plan of God. If we try, we’ll either become grandiose, imagining that we are the centre of God’s universe, or depressed, wondering whether there is any pattern or meaning to it at all. From time to time, though, if we watch in faith and trust, we can glimpse something of what God is about, of what the divine painter has in mind. When we glimpse it, we are wise to go with it...

Taken from Paul for Everyone – The Prison Letters by Tom Wright