The Workmanship of God

For more than twenty five years I’ve been writing songs. Yes, I’ve learned quite a bit about the art and gift of writing songs. Probably the most important principle for writing songs is not to rush the process. I’ve carried song titles, thoughts, and melodies in my mind for two to three years at a time, waiting for the rest to be formed.

Winston Churchill said ‘the joy of using oil in painting is that you can scrape it off with a palette knife and do those parts again which can be better”. Tennyson altered nearly every line of In Memoriam.  Handel sat up through hungry days and nights improving his work, and Chopin would shut himself in his room for whole days, weeping, walking, breaking his pens, repeating and altering a bar a hundred times, and spending six weeks over a single page.

So can’t you see the incredible compliment God pays you when He says in Eph.2:10 "We are His workmanship"  As I look in my own heart I can says this, that if God is satisfied with me as I am now, it must mean that He has stopped caring. If God is satisfied with me now, then He is satisfied with less than I might become. But I remember and know that God is love, and I am a picture on which He is still working; I’m a poem He cannot, for the love of me, leave alone; I’m a sonata he will alter again and again. In fact, the very Biblical use of the word 'fire' is a compliment to us! If that word is used, then it’s pointing to gold! Wood, hay, and stubble are destroyed by fire, but gold can be purified, and when a goldsmith is purifying gold he's not satisfied with the process until he can see his face in the molten metal. Then and then only will he allow it to assume its final form and is satisfied when he sees his own likeness!

It’s a privilege to serve you,
Pastor Lloyd