ONE BIG BRUSH

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
by Georges Seurat

A young friend recently commented to me that we often want to "paint people with one big brush."

It is so much easier, we think, to understand and to relate to people if we can categorize them as purely wicked, or purely good. But people are not that simple. A phrase I've been hearing a lot lately is, "People are so complicated." Yes, yes, we are!

I have a friend who is one of the kindest, most generous, most upbeat people you could ever meet. When she walks into the room, it's like the sun comes out. But my friend also has bouts of melancholy, and she has a thin vicious streak that will cut you to the heart if provoked. My friend is not either/or - sunshine or shadow, sweetness or meanness. She is both.

The same is true of myself. I would really like to believe that I am nothing-but-good. Or, if I'm not all good, that at least I'm 100% not-that-bad. Yet even on my best day, I find great black shards of wickedness in my heart. Knowing this about myself gives me pause when I am tempted to "paint" another person with one big brush.

We are like pointillist paintings by Georges Seurat or Paul Signac. A million-million tiny dots of pure color, applied to a canvas in distinct patterns to create a unique image. So many colors. So many tiny brushes. As paint is applied to the canvas of my life and to the lives of those around me, I must remember to step back from the canvas occasionally to get a broader perspective. Most of all, I must trust the Painter.

God is not sloppy. He chooses each color and each brush, makes each stroke with surgical precision. I must trust that He has some good purpose for both the shadow and the light, the pleasant and the painful. I must rest in the promise that in Glory, all of God's work will be unveiled to reveal a true masterpiece.