Wondrous Works In Progress

It is necessary for you first to hold the rank of human and then to participate in the glory of God. For you do not create God, but God creates you. If, then, you are the work of God, await the hand of God, who does everything at the appropriate time, the appropriate time for you, who are being made. Offer to him your heart, soft and pliable, and retain the shape with which the Fashioner shaped you, having in yourself his Water, lest you turn dry and lose the imprint of his fingers. 

By guarding this conformation, you will ascend to perfection; the mud in you will be concealed by the art of God. His Hand created your substance; it will gild you, inside and out, with pure gold and silver, and so adorn you that the King himself will desire your beauty . . . If, therefore, you offer to him what is yours, that is, faith in him . . . you will receive his art and become a perfect work of God. 

St. Irenaeus of Lyon (Against Heresies, 4.39.2)