"And God Saw That It Was Good"

Michelangelo, "The Creation of Adam"

It's hard to believe I've only been back in Texas for a week.  In some ways it feels like it has been much longer.  School was back in session the day after I got back (luckily I don't have any classes other than one that I TA), but I have gotten into full comprehensive exam preparation mode.  I pushed them back a month to the end of October, early November, but I suppose they are the kind of test that nobody ever feels quite ready for.  It will be nice when they are finished and I can move forward with my dissertation.

Yesterday I went out to the Temple.  I haven't exactly been the world's best Temple patron and that is something I would really like to improve on.  So I am trying to make it over to Dallas as often as time and circumstances will permit.  But with the stress of a new semester on me, I thought it was important that I go yesterday, and I'm glad I did.

While in the Temple, I had cause to reflect upon the Creation and just how orderly and organized that whole process was.  There is much that we don't know or understand, but in the scriptures we are blessed to have several different accounts of the Creation, in Genesis, Moses, and Abraham.  Each one gives us different insights into the process.  But at the same time, each underscores the orderliness with which the Father and the Son carried out the process.  

One thing in particular stood out to me.  We are blessed in this Church to know what the whole Creation was for:  "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39).  Knowing that purpose and then knowing about the Creation helps us to understand just how patient the Father and the Son were.  What would have happened if the Father and the Son had created Adam before there was sufficient light, or before there was water?  What would have happened if they had placed Adam and Eve in the Garden before there was plant life or before there were animals?  What if, in their anxiousness to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man, they had placed man and woman in a place that was not fully prepared, rationalizing that they could fix it up later but the creation of men and women simply could not wait.  For that matter, what would have happened if They had created the world before holding the Council in Heaven, at which "we were all present and saw the Savior chosen and appointed, and the plan of salvation made," which plan "we sanctioned" (Joseph Smith Sermon, 5 January 1841, Words of Joseph Smith, 60)?

He created all things in their perfect order and in the perfect time, and declared each to be good, even when the Creation was not yet complete and perhaps not even very beautiful.  His vision of things as they really would be allowed Him to see beauty and goodness in that which was yet incomplete.  What a tremendous lesson that is for each of us.

I must confess that patience is not necessarily my best attribute.  But as I began to ponder these questions, I was filled with gratitude that our Father and His Divine Son are perfectly patient, preparing all things in their proper time and place, and not rushing their work.  I believe their work in our lives resembles Michelangelo's masterwork on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (I just watched this interesting video).  I can only imagine the amount of preparation that went into that magnificent piece of art.  All of that had to happen before the plaster was placed on the ceiling of the chapel.  For once the plaster was placed on the ceiling, Michelangelo had no time to waste.  He needed to paint with purpose and there was no room for error and it had to be done a little at a time because the plaster would dry that day.  

I don't know if anyone else was ever permitted to observe the work or not, but perhaps some were.  Outside observers who perhaps caught a glimpse of the ceiling here or there may have been confused and wondered what it was going to become.  But they had not seen the preparation that went into the ceiling before plaster and paints were applied.  And their complaints or criticisms were directed at incomplete pieces rather than than finished products.  But for hundreds of years since its completion, observers have marveled at the artistic outcome.

I believe that our Father in Heaven's work will be much the same.  From time to time we may see parts of our lives or the lives of others that are not yet complete.  We wonder what the Master Artist is doing and how these things can ever possibly turn out and create the beautiful work that we all hope for.  But He does not rush His work because onlookers get nervous or anxious.  He has a plan, a plan which He has sketched out long beforehand, and He knows what He is doing and when it must be done.  The end result will be a work of greater beauty and more lasting praise than even Michelangelo's ceiling.  In a coming day, He will unveil His work before our eyes, complete with the preliminary sketches and the final products, and we will stand in awe of His perfect execution of this divine work.  But until that day, we should be careful about criticizing when we see an incomplete area here, or an unfinished promise there.  In due time, all will be finished and every promise fulfilled.  And we will see the wisdom that undergirded His timing in all things.

Brett