By Jordan Dillon
It’s a thin line between hope and despair. Devilishly thin at times. Each of us find ourselves at the edge of that line at some point. It might be our own crisis, or it might be the crisis of someone we know. But we either walk towards or away from that line. Sometimes it feels like that line is chasing us. That happens when we’re not walking towards hope, or maybe when we slip backwards away from hope.
Historically speaking, it seems that even the leaders of the faith who walk with God in the most intimacy have felt the magnetic pull of this thin line. Maybe one of God’s surprising and particularly unassuming roles is to help us always be able to consciously walk towards hope, and leave the thin line behind for good.
Some family friends have been struggling to restore their marriage for going on two years. When I first learned of their struggles about a year ago, I had a cup full of confidence and hope that with some help, guidance and prayer, these two believers could get through it with God and move forward together in love and marriage.
But time went on. The situation didn’t get worse, necessarily, but it wasn’t getting noticeably better either. Friends and family continued to support them and pray for them. The traditional antidotes hadn’t healed them yet, and definitely not in the time frame I thought. I think I had been treating this crisis like it was a mathematical equation to be solved. But this passing of time began slowly to make my feet slip closer to the line, until one day for the first time I said to myself, “I don’t know if their marriage is going to make it.”
There it was.
For the first time in this particular crisis journey.
My heels had only grazed the thin line, but my heart felt like the punctured hull of the Titanic. I had an existential pause.
“Am I out of hope?” I wondered.
“Am I giving up on this possibility of restoration for my friends?” I questioned.
“Has this situation slipped through God’s fingers for good?” I asked.
The response I got was not the one I expected.
It wasn’t a word.
It wasn’t a verse.
It wasn’t a feeling.
It was a picture. (A series of pictures actually.)
The first picture was of The Red Sea crashing down on the Egyptian army as Moses and the Israelites had barely stepped out of the bone-dry lakebed.
The second was the lost and utterly confused faces of Peter, Mary, the other disciples, the Jewish religious leaders, Pilate, and the rest of the Roman Empire as Jesus willingly and peaceably died on the cross.
Both of these pictures were the culmination of something new, something completely unexpected, and almost unrecognizable. What were these pictures telling me about hope?
I realized that these were examples of God creating saving works of art out of despairing sets of circumstances, much in the same way that a painter creates a piece of artwork out of a bunch of disparate colors on a palette.
What are the common characteristics we think of when we are talking about God’s saving work? The ones that come to mind for me are God as a provider, a King, a miracle-worker, or a conquering warrior. Of course He is all those things and more. But God sometimes seems to work a little slower, a little gentler, and in no particular hurry. Kind of like an artist. Before now I, like most people, only thought of God as an artist in relation to the natural world, and the Genesis narratives. But this, it turns out, was a limited view of our need for God as an artist.
If we think of God as the perfect time-keeper it isolates time as the primary problem. If we think of God as provider we’re too narrowly focused on our poverty. The idea of God as a conqueror gets us a solution, but it doesn’t account for journeys of the human heart. What God as an artist can create has no limitations, and remains to be seen. None of the other faces of God brought me a full and complete sense of hope. Going forward, no other ones will either. Good reminders? Sure. Cosmic truth? Absolutely. But not restored hope in what might be created.
God the Great and True Artist accounts for all of these and many more variables in the crises of all of our lives. God can create a new saving masterpiece out of anything and everything we can imagine and beyond.
As the great Artist, God has a four-dimensional palette AND a four-dimensional canvas in which to create saving masterpieces in us and through us. That means even if I can’t imagine how the end will look at all, nor the elements used to complete the work; I can still have hope in the Great Artist.
There is a second and even more important realization I had from this moment. Which is that I learned how to view life’s crises without becoming a frantic nutcase. The framework for me as a follower of God to experience pain and suffering and despair was now set in place–for the first time in my life, really. I have faith and hope in the Great Hope Artist in all things, big and small.
Furthermore, I don’t just sit back as a spectator and watch this Artist work, I don’t just get to visit the gallery for a traveling exhibit in my town for a weekend. I am one of the colors on the palette. I am one lump of clay. I am a note in a scale. I am a lens to be focused. I am a movement to be choreographed. I am a word to be penned. I am in the original pieces of art being created and I live in this exhibit, eternally.
Jordan Dillon is the lead machinist at Strataflo Products Inc, in Fort Wayne Indiana, where he lives with his wife and 3 children. Strataflo produces high quality check valves and Jordan has been with them for 14 years. Jordan also graduated in 2008 from Huntington University with a BA in Bible and Religion. Jordan has experience in both manufacturing and historic house restoration among other Midwestern life experiences and enjoys writing about all aspects of life as they interface with God’s Kingdom. Read more of his writing here.
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