No wasted efforts

I was utterly disappointed. I did not have enough time to go through everything I had prepared. I put a lot of effort into some things that were not even used.

I didn’t want to go home and sulk about it. So I came home, put my heavy bag down and headed out to the art gallery. They happened to open into the night that day.

Walking around the art gallery at night to cool off the mind. I wasn’t angry, just sad.

‘How much wasted effort was there in my life? And how much more will there be?’

‘So many’

‘It’s not just this time. It’s our entire lives that are wasted efforts. Live just so I can die after 7 or 8 decades if I’m lucky?’

I was aching. I thought to myself, ‘Look at all these paintings and the people who painted them, who are all dead! Decades or even centuries ago. No one really cares about them anymore. They just hang here for the light entertainment of distracted modern people’

Then I came across some sketches of Paris in the 50s and 60s by a Swedish artist. I was reading the description on the wall.

“[H]e rarely viewed his works as fully realised or successful … As the artist explained … ‘I know that it is utterly impossible for me to model, paint or draw a head as I see it, and yet this is the only thing I am attempting to do’.”

‘See? There you go. Another guy who died while trying to do what was impossible. What a waste. He’s not that different from me’, I thought.

Then, quietly, a thought came to my heart: ‘You are wrong because I remember. I remember him. I remember every single stroke of his sketches. I have not forgotten a single day of his life. I frame and hang all the long, hard and seemingly mundane days of your life on the walls of my gallery, and I cherish them. I cherish you.’

Then I remembered who all this is for. Then I remembered the One who never forgets. I remembered the one who collects my tears and turns them into gold.

I remember the one who said, “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.” (Isaiah 49:16). I remember the one who wrote all my days in His book before one of them even began (Psalm 139:16); the one who keeps track of my sorrows and bottles my tears (Psalm 56:8).

Yes, I remembered that even the wasted efforts will never be wasted in His hands. The audience of my short life here is an audience of One.