Sketchbook musings: He saw it all

"...but let God transform you into a new person
by changing the way you think..."

​- Romans 12:2
​

The above image is an extract from my sketchbook.  Though rough, I like it as a portrayal of internal growth.  Sometimes the most dramatic changes that we go through in life are not visible on the outside.  Our thinking changes, a layer comes off and yet from the outside we look just the same as we did yesterday.

I've shed many skins over the years.  Old ways of thinking that led to actions I'd probably not choose now.  It's hard not to look back over them and feel regret.  From where I stand now, all these layers down, the skins that I shed look like wasted years.  But regret isn't as hopeless as it feels, it could even be quite the opposite.  When we recognise what we could have done better, doesn't it show there has been growth?

As I look with despair at the skins I shed, I often wonder what God sees.  His thoughts are not my thoughts.  Could it be that he is more interested in what each falling layer reveals than the lifeless layers that have now passed?  I suspect that he looks deep, even under layers that haven't been removed yet and he delights in the unveiling and unveiled.  

He knew the end from the beginning and he knew the layers in between.  When I look in my sketchbook at this simple idea that is still in such raw stages of development, I am reminded...

​"Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be."

​- Psalm 139:16