Men in the Making…

As we see a new home, finished and landscaped and lovely, we may partly forget the process by which it was brought into being. There was dirt to be dug; and rough materials to be shaped and put in place and littered plaster and sawdust and shavings and much noise along with all else. And while it was in the making, we had to have perspective, and we had to have faith: faith in the plan, in the blueprint, in the materials, and in the men who made it. We had to believe that it would someday be what it promised to be.

This is true of other things also. Paintings and portraits look anything but lovely when the artist first begins to daub. The pottery we see and buy and much admire begins as mud a special kind of mud to be sure, but mud nevertheless.

When we see a boy in adolescence, or a boy first learning to play the piano, or a girl first fingering the violin, we have to have faith. The first hesitant notes, the first unsure sounds are not the finished product, but they are the promise of things to come. They are part of the practice and the pain that it takes to arrive at a finished performance. We need to know the ultimate objective and then trust people and principles and proven processes to bring about the ultimate outcome.

We have to trust for many things intelligently but we have to trust. And we have to overlook the imperfections of many things in the making. We are not perfect, any of us; and to others and to our Father in heaven we must look like pretty crude clay at times in some of our actions and utterances and perhaps all of us have reason to criticize all of us in the eternal process of reaching for perfection. But if a person shows honest and earnest effort and intent to pursue sound purposes and principles, we should be as long-suffering (or try to be) as our Father in heaven is with us, and not be too quick to judge or criticize or condemn before we see the product in patient perspective.