FINGERPAINTING FOR ETERNITY

Who among us was born a mathematician? A novelist? A painter of great works of art?

No one was born able to paint. Instead, a person who would become a painter slapped their paint-smeared hand on a page for their mother to draw a turkey for Thanksgiving. And then you scribbled, drew people as heads with stick arms and legs, later adding box bodies and dots for eyes. This took years. In time, you learned to add shade, color, definition. Curvature, light, shadow. After twenty years or more, you could paint with growing skill people stopped to see. Twenty more years, and people pay money for your work. Twenty more years, others study your work to learn. People start at zero and grow to new heights over time.

I learned the same thing is true of groups of people as a leader in a small business. Starting with a small company with rudimentary or no systems, I wanted it to be a larger company helping more communities with more people and better systems. But I couldn’t just have a meeting and tell the team this is what we do now. Even as the owner and leader, even with that power, the people in the business weren’t ready. They needed time, step by step, to grow.

It’s like a merry-go-round. Playgrounds used to have these death traps before helicopter moms and tort law. A metal disk perhaps a dozen feet in diameter with hand grips could be spun by one of the big kids. The faster it went, the more centrifugal force would try to fling you off. In the center as the leader, I didn’t feel it, though I might sometimes get sick to my stomach. But my growing leaders close to me felt it. And the staff who’d just climbed on clung for dear life. If it went too fast, kids got flung off, scraped a knee, and recess ended early. You just can’t go too fast, not because it can’t go faster but because the people can’t.

People can change, but it takes time to grow into it. So it took ten years of growing my business, instituting one change at a time, teaching one lesson at a time, dealing with problems, providing corrections, encouraging and motivating, guiding and growing people. They didn’t do it all at once. They needed time. And it’s not just individuals or small groups that need time.

The human race is like that. All of us. And that’s why, or at least one of the reasons why, God dealt with us differently throughout history.

Between Adam and the Flood, we were but little children, hardly able to function, throwing tantrums, and generally misbehaving. It got so bad, God had to wipe us out and save the few for the future. We don’t have a lot of details of that time, but we may have been on the cusp of wiping ourselves out. Children fighting over who pulls the pin on a hand grenade. Maybe physically, maybe spiritually. Maybe both. I don’t know.

After the Flood, we got our feet under us, able to walk, discover, and learn. Alas, we also wanted our own way, forgetting God’s instructions and blithely going about doing our own thing. As preteens, we selfishly wanted all the powers of God and chose to get there the wrong way. Because we were stupid and immature. Confusing our language, we finally stamped our little foot, pouted, and obeyed. We spread out over the globe.

Then one man had faith. God favored that and called it righteousness. With Abraham, God made a promise about the future of his people. Sweet. We’re special. And so we felt good about ourselves. The line of Patriarchs stumbled along, many attempting to do God’s will. We had some level of faith. Direction. But as a people, we were unable to get far. When the Israelites settled in Goshen, Egypt, we liked it there. Better to live the good life there than return to Canaan as God intended. Our disobedience brought us into slavery. Like a young teen, only when that place became miserable did we listen to someone calling us to something better.

Then came the law. We didn’t know what we should and should not do. God defined it for us, lest we fumble his promise to Abraham and become nothing more than a footnote in history. And he did it from love, to show us what we should do to live in a way pleasing to him. God defined sin so none should question what was and was not sin. Like the responsible adults in your life, these strong boundaries at least pointed us teenagers the right way. Fun? Perhaps not to a teen, but an incredibly loving gift nonetheless.

Of course, we didn’t always listen. We rose in honor and fell in disgrace time and again, just like you and me, stumbling through the early adulthood of our human race. We chafed under the law, confined, held under prescriptive instructions. Do this, don’t do that. God’s law is as perfect as it is narrow. In Galatians, Paul says it held us captive.

Only when we’d matured enough within these boundaries, in the fulness of God’s timing, did he provide a way out from under the law. Jesus the Christ, God the Son, came to the earth, lived the only perfect life without sin, and died to conquer sin and death. With that sacrifice, he freed us from the ceremonial and civic law handed down through Moses. Only then were we free to thrive as adults.

In business, I did the same thing—it’s an analogy, not theology—when I freed my company leaders from my oversight, trusting them to continue on their own, building systems, solving problems, and growing their people as I had grown them. I still encouraged, guided, and counseled, but I rarely prescribed or intervened. The boundaries corralling them had been removed. Freedom. They knew what to do and went to do it. And the company thrived. But if I had tried that on day one, the company would have failed in a matter of weeks. The people just weren’t ready for it until they’d grown.

See, as individuals, small groups, or as the human race through history, people need time and growth to be ready.

So, why didn’t God just make us ready to start with? Well of course, he did. But Adam and Eve spiritually died when they sinned. Drop to zero. Start over. If he’d expected us to go from death to grace immediately, Adam and Eve would likely have rejected it. I would have. After all, we can do this on our own. Therefore, the human race would have ended right there. We couldn’t have handled it. God can do most anything instantaneously. It’s us people that needs growth over time.

It’s been a long process, individually, in groups, or as the human race. From infancy to rebelliousness to independence to boundaries to grace. If you’ve been through it yourself, you know. Now, in faithful acceptance and trust in God, we are ready for good work. Full adulthood. Mature. Productive. Loving. Doing good works and growing the kingdom.

Is that the end of our development as humans? Absolutely not. Christ will reign here on earth, and we with him. Beyond that, eternal life holds untold discoveries and joyful responsibilities in subjects of interest. Like a toddler with fingerpaint smeared on his hands, the future holds never ending growth in ways we can’t yet comprehend. All without wrath, disease, suffering, or death. Delightful development and growth, painting greater and greater works of art without end.

If that sounds good, click here to find out more. The future of the human race is secure in the scarred hands of Jesus. You want to be part of it.