“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”
1 John 3:2, ESV
I have a painting in my office that my Aunt Helen painted. Helen, who passed away in 2016, had a profound impact on me. She was wise, kind, and godly. She was the most mature follower of Christ in our extended family. As a kid, I loved it when Aunt Helen visited, because I could ask her questions about the Bible that my own parents couldn’t answer.
When I was growing up, this painting had a prominent place in our kitchen, and when my mom passed in 2021, it was the one thing I asked for from her house.
For years, every time Helen would visit my mom, she would want to take the painting back with her and work on it some more. She was never happy with it.
Specifically, she wanted to re-do the pear. But my mom wouldn’t let her. She told her, “Helen, this represents who you were when you painted it, not the painter you wound up being. I like it just the way it is.
Leave the pear alone.”
If you’ve lived at all, you have a few regrets. You have a few pears you wish you could paint over. Nobody paints it right the first time. And artists can look at paintings they did early in life and say, “But I’ve learned so much since then!” Poets cringe at the sappiness and naivete of their poems from high school. People who journal can look at entries from a certain day (or even a certain season of days) and be tempted to rip those pages out. In those times, we can all do well to remember my mom’s advice to her sister. The artist we were is not the same as the artist we become. Leave the pear alone, and don’t think twice about signing your name to the work.
Paul tells us, in his letter to the Philippians, that he is confident of this very thing: that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6). Consistently in Scripture, we are reminded to forget what lies behind, and to press on to what is ahead (Philippians 3:13-14). That what we will be has not yet been revealed (1 John 3:2). And if there is a sermon you would have preached differently, or a poem you would have written differently, or a pear you would have painted differently, or a day you would have lived differently, then let them all stand as a testimony to where God has led you.
Jesus’ last words on the cross, according to John’s gospel, were “It is finished” (John 19:30). In the Greek, the word is τελέω. It carries the meaning of an action being fulfilled or accomplished according to a command. It’s the last act that completes a process. Significantly, τελέω is also the root of the word for “perfect” that is used in Philippians 1:6.
There will come a day when our work is accomplished, because there has already been a day when Jesus’ work was accomplished. When we will be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. We will hear our Savior say, “Well done, good and faithful servant, come and share in the joy of your Master” (Matthew 25:23).
Until that day, we keep painting, composing, singing, dancing, building, sculpting, and journaling. We are artists, every one of us; contributing our stanzas and quatrains and couplets; our still lifes and studies and portraits and landscapes; our lyrics and melodies; our designs and projects to God’s great masterpiece. The artists we were are not the artists we will become. But if we are gentle with ourselves, and if we leave the pear alone, we can see how far our God has brought us.
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