The Making of a Persian Rug

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” 1 Cor 15:58

When they are making a Persian rug, they put it up vertically on a frame, and little boys, sitting at various levels, work on the wrong side of it. The artist stands on the right side of the rug – the side on which people will tread, and shouts his instructions to the boys on the other side.

Sometimes a boy will make a mistake in the rug? ‘What happens when a boy makes a mistake?’ “Quite often the artist does not make the boy take out the wrong color. If he is a great enough artist, he weaves the mistake into the pattern.”

You and I are working on the wrong side of the rug. We cannot watch the pattern developing. I know I put in the wrong color very often. I put in black when God meant red, and yellow when He meant white; and the other workers with whom I make my rug make mistakes too.

Sometimes I am tempted to say, ‘Is Anybody on the other side of the rug; am
I just left to make a mess of my life alone? Is there Anybody there?’

Then through the insight, which comes back with returning faith, I realize that instead of making me undo it all or letting my life’s purpose be ruined, God puts more in.

I wonder if sometimes He alters the pattern.

It isn’t what it might have been; but because he is such a great artist I haven’t spoiled everything. So, at the end, when he calls me down off my plank and takes me round to the other side, I shall see that just because He is such a great Artist, no mistakes of mine can utterly spoil His plan.

If only I will work with Him, ‘simply trusting every day,’ I think one day I shall find my mistakes and my calamities and my distress and my failures and all my pain, woven into the pattern, and I shall say, ‘It is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.’

Some such faith I must have to believe in a God of love who puts us into a world where things can go so utterly wrong.

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