You Are Not a Paintbrush
I’ve been remaking an upstairs bedroom into an office. The process has been slow and tedious. At this point, I’ve lost track of the hours spent repairing walls, priming wood trim, and finally putting on that first paint—only to realize the color I chose was all wrong.
To date, I’ve painted five coats on those walls, and I’m praying I can soon retire my paintbrush and turn my attention to the more glamours details of arranging furniture and thrifting for just the right tchotchkes to place upon those floating shelves. Beginnings are often about big effort without much to show for it.
Yesterday as I sat on the office floor applying yet another coat of “Silky White” to the wood baseboards, I contemplated what it must be like to be always a paintbrush but never the paint—always the tool, but never part of the finished product. I felt a strange kinship with the brush in my hand, reflecting on all the years I spent thinking that I, too, was just a paintbrush, something useful in the hands of the Creator.
In college, the pressure to “do something” for God or to “find my calling” nearly flattened me. Much of that anxiety was self-imposed flowing out of a desire to live a life of meaning and purpose. But the other part came out of a Christian culture that emphasized doing for God over being with God. My worth was tangled in the idea that I was a means to God’s end and if I didn’t get my part right I would miss the mark and ruin “God’s plan.”
It all seems so horribly dramatic now, but the panic was real. How was I to change the world for God if I didn’t know what I was supposed to do? Who was I to God without a purpose?
I was so worried about what type of paintbrush I would be that I could not see the canvas, let alone the Creator. My misconceptions birthed frustration, wedging its way between me and God. I felt as if I were throwing darts in the dark, while God watched from his divine shadows to see whether I would hit the mark. Purpose felt impossible, and God seemed capricious.
But I was wrong. I spent all those years laboring over what I would be for God, when his image was already embedded in me. Life and loss unraveled my misconceptions, and over time, what I found was that my identity wasn’t somewhere, out there, waiting to be discovered, but woven into the very fabric of my design.
I was not the paintbrush; I was the piece of art.
In Genesis 1, we get a glimpse into the beginning narrative—how a communal God crafted the earth out of nothingness and “made mankind in his own image.”[1] I imagine the moments after he fashioned the man out of the dirt and wove woman from the flesh and bone of the man, and I wonder: Did God pause and take a step back? Did he look at the couple with a wide smile across his face and a hearty laugh that shook the earth as he breathed his own spirit into them? I like to think his eyes sparkled as he watched the man and the woman look at each other for the first time and then nod in pleasure as he declared them “very good.”[2]
But here is what I don’t want us to miss: Before Adam and Eve did a single thing, God declared them good. Out of divine community, God created a people unto himself—not only to tend the land he had created, but also to embody his creative capacity to continue in the making of good things. “Be fruitful and multiply” was more than a call to procreate, but to continue in the creation God had begun in the garden—not to earn a place in the kingdom, but to live from the kingdom that was already in them.
You, too, were handcrafted for the kingdom.
Mankind is not a means to God’s end, but a manifestation of his presence. Before you knew a word, his Word was in you. Even without career, calling, status, or accolades, God’s delight has covered you. He looks on you and sees what is good because you are not a tool for God’s agenda, but a carefully chosen color on a canvas, part of the masterpiece on which is making himself known to the world through hands and feet, fingers and flesh.
You are not a paintbrush; you are the piece of art.
So what of work? Rooted in God’s delight, what we do becomes an outpouring of who we are in the Creator, not the other way around. Whether we are teachers or entrepreneurs, window washers or architects, we work from our worth—not to earn our badges or accolades, but to participate in the ongoing story of creation and to see every person through the lens of God’s delight. This is the calling that’s written in our bones. No more, and no less.
