Michelangelo famously remarked, “I saw an angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” In other words, the ideal artist begins the painstaking process with the end already in sight and allows the future to exert its peculiar pull on her current efforts. Just like Michelangelo’s angel, our future is here, hidden in the marble of our lives, and awaiting the chisel. Though our purpose may not always be clear, if we nurture the discipline of careful reflection, what Frederick Buechner calls “listening to your life,” we will soon discover abundant clues about the future in the present. “How shall we picture the kingdom of God,” asks Jesus, “or by what parable shall we present it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade” (Mark 4:30-32). Significantly, Jesus’s parable reveals that there are no plants or trees without seeds, and there are no trees that weren’t once seeds. And according to Michelangelo, there is no angel without the slab of marble. This illustrates that the “newness of life” about which Paul speaks about in 2 Corinthians 5:17 is available to us here and now. By the Spirit’s power, we are now free to walk as members of a “new creation” set against the backdrop of a fallen world that is passing away as we speak. By the Spirit’s power, we are free to live as complete examples of what God is still bringing to completion, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in [us] will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).
~ Ravi Zacharias