Crammed With Heaven: God is at work on His masterpiece

A monthly column in which Jenni Pretorius Hill shares stories of hope which bring Heaven’s perspective to Earth

The statue of David, carved by Michelangelo in the 1500s, was cut from a block of marble that had stood abandoned for two decades. The greatest sculptors of the time had dismissed it as worthless – pockmarked and veiny – and inadequate for producing anything of value. But Michelangelo saw something different. He looked beyond the external flaws to imagine what might appear within the rock itself, and he saw something beautiful: a man who would attest to the greatness of the artist, and one who would stand uneclipsed as the greatest sculpture in the world.

Michelangelo employed the technique of subtractive sculpting, meaning a process by which the product is revealed by eliminating unnecessary material. It took him three years of chiselling and chipping away to create his masterpiece.

I liken the process to what God does with us throughout our life journey; it’s not about adding but eliminating. We make the mistake of believing that good things come with additions – “my life would be better if I had … a better qualification, more cash, a bigger house, a wife…” – instead of recognising, that for the additions to serve us, God first needs to remove some of the gunk, like waste marble, that encases our hearts. 

I once knew an unhappy young woman who was obsessed with the idea of marriage. She was determined to put an end to her singleness because she believed a husband was her ticket to financial security, and the antidote for her poor self-esteem. She fell pregnant not long after my desperate attempt to dissuade her from her reckless pursuit, and the father of the child proposed marriage. I lost touch with her after that, but rumour reached me that it wasn’t a happy union. Many years later, I saw her shamed in the local newspaper for stealing money from the company she worked for. Admittedly, I only know the bare outline, but I am fairly convinced that had she stayed still enough for God to chisel away at some of the mindsets that held her captive to the lies she believed about herself, the story may have turned out differently. But if we are honest with ourselves, are we any different? How many of us have imagined a lotto winning as the means to live out our dreams? How often do we mourn the lack of something, and blame that lack for our difficult circumstance?

Before Michelangelo could add his exquisite detail, he had to remove large chunks of rock. God likes to eliminate before he adds. The love of money, and your reliance on it, needs to be eradicated from your life if you are ever to successfully steward wealth. For us to be healthy influencers and truth tellers in the world, we need to allow Him to confront and remove our fear of man and heal our hope in power to affirm our value. The process is painful; like the sculptors of old, the Master Craftsman will often utilise a drill, or a mallet, to break open the most stubborn and resistant pieces of rock. These are the layers that have built up over time: layers of pain and self-protection, interspersed with hardened belief systems that have been reinforced by the negative circumstances of life. While God is not the author of chaos, or suffering, He will allow these things to crack us open to the Gospel, and to His healing. 

I have experienced so much dismantling over my 30-year journey with Jesus. It’s quite remarkable to look back at the old me and see how much of that packaging is left. I once thought that all that marble was inseparable from my actual self, that my insecurities and self-consciousness was a necessary protection for my heart. But over the years, God has chipped away a good part of that, and what I see now is nothing short of breathtaking. 

David’s responsibility was simply to be: to stand rock-still so Michelangelo could do his thing. It wouldn’t have done had he darted off his plinth! It’s a very vulnerable thing entrusting our wellbeing to the Man with the chisel, and it’s very tempting to want to control the process or determine the timing of it. I have often watched people duck away from the process, and most often than not, that looks like a person removing themselves from the Body of Christ. You see, the stuff that God wants to eliminate shows up in the rub and vulnerability of community. The Church, and the members of the body of Christ, are His hands wielding the chisels, mallets and brushes. The Church can be our greatest source of pain, but ironically it is also our place of healing. 

God is the Master Artist. His intent is not perfection – no work of art is perfect – but freedom. Michelangelo is thought to have said of his David: “I saw the angel in the rock, and I carved to set him free.” What you may have perceived as punishment, because you felt pain, was only a drill-bit to your tongue to free it to speak, or a hammer to your heart to free it from fear. You are part of the beautiful Bride who is being readied to present herself, pure and spotless. God is at work on His church. Great hunks of marble are falling and shattering on the ground. He is eliminating everything that is flawed and pitted, and He is aiming His mallet at the worthless façade masking the true identity and vitality of His Bride. 

One day we will stand upon a plinth, as a city on a hill, and like all true masterpieces, we will call attention to the genius and artistry of the Creator Himself. 

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