As I was making my latest bas-relief painting, I received some understanding of the process God might be going through to develop His Church (people). I'll try to explain with my process in pictures:

This pic shows how the pile of chains looked before starting - they represent people, as links hooked up in various groupings (families or nations). But left to themselves they are all over the place, entangled and unable to communicate or function as the creator would like them to.

So the task begins - of arranging the links and chains in an orderly, functional manner - and sewing them onto the canvas so that many more can be moved into place. They all need to be tacked down because if they're not, a small jolt of the table will scatter them.

More and more chains are added until the creator is happy with the formation of everyone. Some stragglers look like they want to get away, but they don't fit in till the end, so it's ok. They eventually get sewn in place.

Here's a "behind the scenes" look at the efforts taken to gather every chain permanently into it's proper place.

The chains think they look pretty good now - all lined up and shiny (left pic), but the process to the final image is long. First a unifying (gluing) process is needed - it can be messy and chains get influenced to go here and there - but all are eventually brought back into place.
And then they must rest - until the canvas is dry and nothing can be shaken or moved out of place.

Paint is applied and removed, applied and removed, applied and removed. The chains take a good beating to become beautiful! (note to self - fingers are a great polisher).

The end has come and it's taken a lot of "pushing and pulling" of colour - and a LOT of polishing and buffing - but the creator is happy with the final result (closeup on the right).

You'll see the final here on my website under "Bas Relief Paintings"