The most famous art sculpture in stone is Michelangelo’s David which was carved out of a single block of Carrara marble in less than three years. Several others had been commissioned to do this carving but all withdrew from the project in part because of the size and the flaws in the stone. Michelangelo accepted the challenge and is quoted on the secret of his success as,
Doesn’t that make sense? How else would you carve a 17’ tall, 12,000 pound rock into the likeness of a man? Today’s passage uses that same technique as the course of our becoming in the image of God,
As much as we look to genetics as the source of our makeup, Scripture points to our spiritual source. We are ‘in the likeness’ of God, founded in the desires and mindset of who God is and what He values enough to place into us. Then He gives us the expression of our latter spiritual ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, who lived by faith believing God was able to accomplish what God said He would do, fulfilling His will in their lives. God ‘calls’ one and through the fulfilling of His promise, makes that ‘one’ the father of a nation and father of all who believe the revealing of God.
Have you thought about how trying it must be for God to try to draw His image out of us squirming, twisting, chasing-after-our-own-way people. Michelangelo took less than three years to draw David out of stone but God has spent a lifetime shaping His image into me.
How about you? Are you resembling the Lᴏʀᴅ yet?