Coloring Inside The Lines
The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. – Proverbs 16:9
One of the first educational lessons I learned in life was to color inside the lines. It was probably in nursery school when we were given outlines of characters and crayons, and told to color. Invariably there would be times when I and some of my classmates would make a mess and color all over the place, and the teacher would have to tell us how to color the right way; and to do that we had to color inside the lines. It was a way of demonstrating to us the proper way to color by staying within the borders of the page and within the boundaries of the image that was given to us.
We were taught that it was wrong to overstep the boundaries, to deviate outside the periphery or the margins that were given to us. The teachers meant well. They were just showing us how to make the picture look nice, neat, and clean, and growing up I was very good at learning how to color within the lines. I was very proficient in conforming to this. I was sure not to color outside the lines, not to make a mess, not to mix the colors, and not to make a picture that would not be acceptable to others.
This preference for coloring inside the lines is one that many people like to apply to modern day life and living. They pursue paths that are neat, safe, and predicable. You are to go to school, make good grades, get a scholarship to college, graduate and get a job in the field of your major, get married, buy a house, have children, retire, live comfortably on your pension, see the grandkids during the summer, die, and go to heaven. And don’t forget, it’s all supposed to happen in that order.
Because we live our lives that way, inside the lines, we assume that the path that God has for us is neat, structured, and clean. God’s will for our lives must conform to this pretty trajectory for life that we imagine for ourselves, and we struggle to accept or to do anything that is presented to us that is outside those lines. The problem with this perspective is that we do not serve an inside-the-lines kind of God. Our Heavenly Father doesn’t have a pre-cut template for every single one of His children. No, He has a unique plan and purpose for each and every one of us, so we shouldn’t be surprised when His plans deviate from our safe and predictable ones. Instead, we should be grateful to serve a creative God and excited to see what outside-the-box plan He has in store for us!
One of the first educational lessons I learned in life was to color inside the lines. It was probably in nursery school when we were given outlines of characters and crayons, and told to color. Invariably there would be times when I and some of my classmates would make a mess and color all over the place, and the teacher would have to tell us how to color the right way; and to do that we had to color inside the lines. It was a way of demonstrating to us the proper way to color by staying within the borders of the page and within the boundaries of the image that was given to us.
We were taught that it was wrong to overstep the boundaries, to deviate outside the periphery or the margins that were given to us. The teachers meant well. They were just showing us how to make the picture look nice, neat, and clean, and growing up I was very good at learning how to color within the lines. I was very proficient in conforming to this. I was sure not to color outside the lines, not to make a mess, not to mix the colors, and not to make a picture that would not be acceptable to others.
This preference for coloring inside the lines is one that many people like to apply to modern day life and living. They pursue paths that are neat, safe, and predicable. You are to go to school, make good grades, get a scholarship to college, graduate and get a job in the field of your major, get married, buy a house, have children, retire, live comfortably on your pension, see the grandkids during the summer, die, and go to heaven. And don’t forget, it’s all supposed to happen in that order.
Because we live our lives that way, inside the lines, we assume that the path that God has for us is neat, structured, and clean. God’s will for our lives must conform to this pretty trajectory for life that we imagine for ourselves, and we struggle to accept or to do anything that is presented to us that is outside those lines. The problem with this perspective is that we do not serve an inside-the-lines kind of God. Our Heavenly Father doesn’t have a pre-cut template for every single one of His children. No, He has a unique plan and purpose for each and every one of us, so we shouldn’t be surprised when His plans deviate from our safe and predictable ones. Instead, we should be grateful to serve a creative God and excited to see what outside-the-box plan He has in store for us!
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