When you carve and chisel a statue out of stone, it takes quite a bit of work. Sometimes God’s work in our lives is like making a statue.
You start with a block or slab of rock. It doesn’t really look like anything artistic, but the potential is there. Then you have to know what it should be made into. When that’s planned out, you take your tools and start chipping away at the block of stone. Pieces of the stone fall away and all around. Your statue begins to take a general shape. As you continue to chisel, you use smaller tools to make more precise details. Bit by bit it becomes a more complete work of art. As you work, you aren’t making new rock, it is still the same rock. You’re just making it into a different shape, a shape that people will know has artistry and work behind it.
When God works in our lives, He must chisel away all the pieces that do not belong to the shape we should be. He has a grand, beautiful work of art in mind, and no one can see that unless He shapes us that way. As He continues to chisel He can add finer tuned details. But remember God is not taking away your individuality. God doesn’t make you into an entirely different kind of rock, He just makes you into the shape you are designed to be. He makes you into a wonderful work of art so others can see that He is good, and that He can change them, too.