“Poems are never completed. Only
abandoned.” I am not sure to whom to attribute
that statement. I heard it for the first time many
years ago, and have heard it several times
since. What it says to me is that poets spend a
lot of time writing and rewriting, choosing just
the right words, just the right cadence, just the
right turns of phrase, and just the right length.
After working and massaging over and over
again, poets eventually decide to move on,
leaving the current poem “incomplete,” at least
in a sense. They pour themselves into the work,
making it as good as it possibly can be. For
poets (and for writers in general), it is a love for
what they create that drives them to do what
they do—to invest so much of themselves in
their literary designs.
In Ephesians 2:10, Paul describes the
people of God as God’s “workmanship.” In
Christ, we are not only God’s creation, Paul
argues, but also God’s new creation. The word
that the ESV translates as “workmanship” is the
same word from which we derive our English
word, “poem.” In reality, each of us is a poem
that God has lovingly crafted. God has used his
creative power to make us—through Christ—
into something special and holy and set apart
for God’s mission in this world. With each of us,
God writes and rewrites our lives, laboring over
each gift and talent and opportunity. He works in
us and “massages” our lives in order that we
become the “poem” that he created us to be.
And, as Paul states clearly, God prepared all of
this in advance. As a result of the salvation that
we have received in Christ through grace and
faith, we are God’s workmanship. His
craftmanship. His poems. We are God’s own
works of art, designed to emulate him in this
world.
–Ricky
