God is the most obligated being in the universe

        I don’t know why it was so hard but coloring within the lines could be tricky.  Any talents I had in art were exhausted by the effort to come right up to those lines and not over.  The thicker the line the easier.  Thin lines and dull crayons made for a disaster.  I gave up.  Painting by the numbers was worse.  I could feel the tension as my brush got closer and closer to the boundary.  Those watery colors could seep over the line if the paint was too thick.   If I couldn’t even paint by the numbers, what hope was there for me to draw something really beautiful!!  I quit.
          But I wonder – does God draw within the lines?  It seems He doesn’t.  I draw the lines for Him and hand Him my coloring book.  “Okay, God, here is the picture – keep your crayon sharpened and please don’t mess it up.”  He takes my picture, and when He is done, hands it back to me.  To be honest, it looks like a first grader’s scribbling.  In fact, it doesn’t look like a picture at all.  The coloring book I created had all those great pictures to fill in.  It could have been something beautiful if God had only stayed within the lines.
          A wise person asks, whose lines?  Mine or God’s?  God might seem like He is drawing free hand with no respect for guidelines, order or beauty.  But you can be sure that when He draws, He isn’t just making it up as He goes along.  J Gresham Machen reminds us in his book The Christian View of Man that God is the most obligated being in the universe.  All of God’s acts are determined, clear and ordered because they are based on His unchanging nature.  My lines are drawn according to moods, fancies, phases and wishes.  But God paints according to purposes, righteousness, truth and goodness.  And those do not change.  God is obligated by His own nature.  He is infinite in His wisdom; therefore He can never do anything that is unwise.  He is infinite in His justice; therefore He can never do anything that is unjust.  He is infinite in His goodness; therefore He can never do anything that is not good.  He is infinite in His truth; therefore it is impossible that He should lie.
          Maybe rather than handing to God my lines for Him to fill in I should just hand Him my life.  And then I should ask of Him only one thing:  make me like Jesus.  “God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.” Rom 8:29