Reflecting the Great Artist
Warm, fresh spring air blows in through the window adjacent to my small bedside desk. The sunlight is as bright as the grass is green, and songbirds chatter in the maples and black locust trees nearest the house. On the caressing breeze I smell fresh-cut grass, and the smell of conditioner in my freshly-cut hair. The renewal and refreshing and growth of the spring season is everywhere!
I breath in deeply through my nose, and exhale with a smile. What a lovely spring this is. What a lovely day!
I love poetry, both listening to it and writing my own. I don’t think I am very good at it, but it doesn’t matter. I love poetry because it notices the things that we usually don’t notice. It describes plain things as profound, simple things as complex. Poetry tends to reach deeper into the world than what we first experience with our five senses, and gives a deeper meaning to those otherwise “everyday” experiences.
Poetry is nice, great sometimes, because it is beautiful, and more importantly because it finds the beauty in all sorts of things. It can be hard to find beauty everywhere, but I have realized the more I look for it, the more I find. I don’t think that is coincidence!
If we find beauty in the world, people and experiences around us, who put that beauty there? Contrary to some popular beliefs and opinions in culture today, I believe that the world was created by a brilliant, masterful Designer. I believe God created everything in the universe, from planets to molecules, insects to animals, oceans to mountains. I believe He created it with as much love and craftsmanship as any artist would mold a piece of pottery, or paint a portrait.
God is an Artist, a Maker. I imagine the joy and delight He felt when He made everything that exists out of nothing. How He must have smiled watching light and life spring forth from the darkness! But surely, He could not have felt more delight than when He made the crown of all His creation: human beings.
Have you thought about that? WE are a work of art! But not only are we made by a loving, masterful Creator- we are made in His image. We are created to create. Made to make. Made to see, and smell, and hear and feel and enjoy the world God designed for us. I believe He enjoyed created the world, and I believe He wants us to enjoy it too!
How often do we really enjoy the world? I try to make a practice of enjoying beauty “when I have time”, but not so much when I feel rushed, harried, or stressed. Beauty isn’t important to me when I am in this “survival mode” state of being. This is an easy place to slip into, but I don’t think it is what God wants for me.
As a loving Father, God wants what is best and good for us. Jeremiah 29:11, Proverbs 3:5-6, and Psalm 139 talk about the good plans God has established before we were even born. He has good in mind for us, because He loves us. He didn’t create us to survive- He created us to thrive!
Friends, I know the world has much darkness covering it. Our lives have many dark and broken places. Even our own hearts are scarred and stripped. BUT- we are not children of darkness, but children of light because of Christ. We are not children of despair, but of hope. Not of brokenness, but of beauty.
“ For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.” (1 Thess 5:5)
“For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor 4:6)
I think the darkness that surrounds the places and hearts of so many around us is all the more reason to live out the hope we have in Jesus. And yes, living is hard. Looking for and finding beauty isn’t looking for things to be easy. It is intentionally looking for God’s love all around us. We “know” with our minds that God loves us, but do we know with our hearts?
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:6)
It is easy to find what is wrong (even a toddler can do it!). Instead, let us live out the beauty God created us with and for by finding the good that He has filled the world and our lives with. It is there, we just have to look for it.
Psalm 65:5-8:
5 By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness,
O God of our salvation,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas;
6 the one who by his strength established the mountains,
being girded with might;
7 who stills the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
the tumult of the peoples,
8 so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs.
You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.