I had just sat down this afternoon to do some knitting (I am almost done with the wee cardigan now! It has taken me much longer than usual to get finished because I kept making so many mistakes and having to re-knit parts of it - more than one time in places!) when I heard the delightful and beautiful sound of our children upstairs, strumming their guitars and singing this sweet hymn. It really made me smile! Not just because it is always such a pleasure to hear our grown up cubs still enjoying each other's company just as much as they did when they were wee, but also because what they were singing was just so perfectly appropriate!
I thought to myself how very true it is, that we are still a "work in progress" as we live our lives on earth as God's children. Just as with my knitting, sometimes, we will go wrong, but there is always a way that God will be able to help us to undo our mistakes, and go back and make things right. Like my knitting, we won't ever be perfect, but with effort and a willingness to learn from our mistakes, we will be good enough for the purpose that God has intended for us. It just takes patience, persistence, and a sense of humour! Now sometimes recently with this knitting, I haven't felt very much like laughing, when yet again, I had to take back several rows, or even unravel a half-finished piece and start over from the beginning, but today, thinking of this lovely hymn, I realised that it is all part of God's plan for me - and in particular, working as we are this month on the character quality of humility, it has helped me to understand the need not to become too confident or complacent about my skills as a knitter! It's made me realise just how much we all still have to learn ... which is absolutely as it should be! As long as we allow God to guide us and show us the right way to do things, then even when we do make mistakes, we can be sure that we are still pleasing Him.
Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.
And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. (Proverbs 90: 16 - 17).
