This past September 8-10 in Libby, Montana, the world’s best chainsaw carvers gathered to display their amazing skills and to auction off their products. It is so fascinating to watch their progress from Thursday through Saturday as they turn a 5-7′ section of a big log into a bald eagle perched in a tree, or a canoe full of bear cubs, or a hummingbird, or salmon or bull moose. These carvers obviously have tremendous artistic abilities and can visualize the final product as they remove the portions of the wood that don’t fit that final image. When you see the details of their finished products it is hard to believe that it was all done with various sizes of chainsaws and attachments.  

     Their work is very similar to that of sculptors who use chisels instead of chainsaws and stone instead of wood.  In last month’s Today In the Word from Moody Bible Institute, September 26th’s devotional was about God as an artist.  The author, Ryan Cook, quoted Michelangelo, perhaps the greatest sculptor in history, who was asked to describe his craft, and his reply was: “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” Well, that is the same process for the chainsaw carver with his or her (There were a couple women carvers) block of wood. 

     In the Old Testament, we don’t find chainsaw carvers, but we do find potters who used their artistic abilities to shape clay into all sorts of vessels which they had first envisioned in their mind.  In order to teach the prophet Jeremiah about His sovereignty over the nations–Israel in particular– God sent him to the  potter’s house to observe how, when the vessel he was making was spoiled, “he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make” (Jer. 18:2-4).  Then God said to Jeremiah, “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does? Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel” (vv. 5,6). 

     The prophet Isaiah acknowledged that God was not only sovereign over nations, but also individuals, as he wrote:  “But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You are the potter; and all of us are the work of Your hand” (Isa. 64:8).  Similarly, the Psalmist wrote: “Know that the LORD Himself is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves…” (Psa. 100:3).

     The Apostle Paul, in discussing the sovereignty of God in his letter to the believers in Rome, wrote: “…who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you  make me like this,’ will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for common use?” (Ro. 9:20.21).  

     Since we provide kindling and campfire wood for a local grocery store, we finally bought a wood splitter a few years ago to speed up the process and save on the wear and tear on our bodies. In the instruction manual was this statement: “Inspect each log before splitting. Make sure there are no nails or foreign objects in the log.Talk to the log and explain what’s about to happen to make sure it’s properly prepared!”  (NOTE: The instructions also stated: “Only a single operator should load and operate the log splitter {we do it together!}. Keep all other living creatures, including children, pets and in-laws, a minimum of 20 feet away from the work area”!!) 

     Well, our Divine Sculptor/ Potter/ Carver does give us an explanation for what He is doing as He chips away at our lives, removing what doesn’t fit the finished product. He explains in Romans “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son...” (Ro. 8:28,29a).  God is at work, through all the events in our lives (good and bad from our perspective) to shape us into His image.  Ane we can be confident that “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6). One day we will “stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy” (Jude 24). 

     Meanwhile, we are “work in progress” and the process of “sculpting” or “carving” or “molding” isn’t always enjoyable. “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful, yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness…He disciplines us for our good that we may share His holiness” (Heb. 12:11, 10b). The Apostle Paul (who experienced a lot of “shaping” in his life) wrote: “For I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Ro. 8:18). “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (II Cor. 4:17).  God is able to take all the broken pieces of our lives and make something beautiful. 

     That shaping process won’t be complete until God takes us home. Then we will experience the truth of I Jn. 3:2: “Beloved, now we are the children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that when He appears, we shall be like Him because we shall see Him just as He is.”   So, please be patient, God is not finished with me yet!  We can have engraved on our tombstone: “END OF CONSTRUCTION–THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE!” 

Forever His and a “Work In Process,”

Pastor Dave