God the Artist

Monster whales. Northern Lights. Animal "art."

Everywhere we look, God sculpts, plasters, paints, and draws beauty. From the deepest oceans to the remotest corners of land and sky, God's artwork shows off his creativity.

What fun to read about new discoveries! People devote their lives to exploring the intricacies and vastness of the universe. We call them scientists, artists, and writers.

It seems easier for me to believe that a personal Artist designed it all, than to fathom how such splendor inched from nothingness to spectacular displays––in all their minute and astronomical proportions. What do you think?

What make me smile today, acknowledging God as infinitely generous, is that he gave humans senses and intelligence so we could observe and enjoy our surroundings.

An added bonus? He gifted some of us as researchers and artists, to reflect how differently we see and understand God's bounty. Lucky us!

Read more:

*Bezalel made the bronze washbasin and its bronze stand from bronze mirrors donated by the women who served at the entrance of the Tabernacle. Exodus 38:8 NLT

*I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:14-16 NIV

*More majestic than the thunders of mighty waters, more majestic than the waves of the sea, majestic on high is the Lord! Psalm 93:4

*Jesus woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. Mark 4:39

Moravian Prayer: Lord of heaven and earth, you are high above all creation. You continue to provide for us the sustenance needed to sustain our lives. May we live lives worthy of the peace that Jesus brings to all humankind! Amen.

Stuck in statistics

"Everyone can't be good at everything," Mom tells me. I know that's true about me!

I'm ploughing through (no, I don't mean plowing) statistics for 6 years; 1900, 1905, 1910, 1915, 1920, 1925. Yawn. Just writing the years bores me. I'm trying to chart engagement in missions within a few denominations. SO much information, so many places to find it, so little agreement between the data. For one group, I found three different "official" statistics for the same year, same value. Ugh.

Of course, it doesn't help that I get lost when counting. I can count the same info five times with five different answers (and have done so...) My mind zones out; it feels like I'm entering a fog, even when I try to keep track with the computer cursor and pencil marks on paper. In the thicket of slippery numbers, I'm envying the calculator brain of my wonderful d-in-love Rebekah (who is gifted at many things besides math, too.) 

"Not my talent," I tell myself. "Just something I have to crunch through." (ouch! eek! zzzzzzh!) I love information and am excellent at estimates. I can glance at groups of things, sort them easily, and come up with an approximate number or grouping that will be really close to a 100% accurate one -- which would take me ages to muddle toward. I'm also dreadful at making sense of clever license plates and crossword puzzles. Riddles leave me unmoved, though finding out the key to an algebra equation used to give me a thrill like stepping off a roller coaster.

Sadly, my great guess-timates didn't help me much in calculus classes. And the high school business machine teacher used to shake his head that a good typist kept mixing 3 and 9 on the adding machine. "Perfect accuracy, Rosemarie! You have to perfectly accurate or that one stroke puts you six million off!" he'd shout while scanning my papers. Oh, Mr. Williams, it was to little avail, except, "I'm trying! I'm trying!"

At a job interview, I warned a prospective boss that money was not my gift. Well, he'd asked, "What are you NOT good at?" Didn't take a new breath to answer that one!

Money. (Yup, he had an MBA.) "I'll be under budget and hand you back thousands if I can," I promised. "But keeping track? Yuck." Every year in that office, I never needed the full amount allotted to my department, though I asked to keep that amount earmarked, just in case. 

Well, of course I didn't need it all to reach my annual goals ... I am gifted at re-purposing, creating, and finding "just the right thing" to get a job done (though "the right thing" might have been manufactured for another purpose.)

This morning, on my second full day of gathering and reporting numbers on a chart, I'm comforting myself with a word break. That I can do. Thanks be to God for creating writers and artists to complement scientists and accountants in his wide, wide world. 

All he asks us to do is today's work. There is comfort and peace in making sure our tasks are God's assignments, whether we take them upon ourselves or a boss or professor requires them of us. What's on your list today?

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*When Moses' father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he asked, 'What are you really accomplishing here? Why are you trying to do all this alone while everyone stands around you from morning till evening?

Moses replied, 'Because the people come to me to get a ruling from God.'

'This is not good!' Moses' father-in-law exclaimed. 'You're going to wear yourself out—and the people, too. This job is too heavy a burden for you to handle all by yourself.' Exodus 18:14–15, 17–18 NLT

*LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Psalm 16:5-8 NIV

*Then, surrounded by the Pharisees, Jesus asked them a question: 'What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?' 

They replied, 'He is the son of David.'

Jesus responded, 'Then why does David, speaking under the inspiration of the Spirit, call the Messiah "my Lord"? For David said, "The LORD said to my Lord, Sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies beneath your feet." Since David called the Messiah "my Lord," how can the Messiah be his son?'

No one could answer him. And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions. Matthew 22:41–46 NLT

Real place to play

Just saw it all: a kitchen, complete with cupboards and counters. The sink and stove are gone. The homeowner turned the whole area into her office and studio. 

What a great idea. So many lovely kitchens languish because people don't cook. Why waste the space by squirreling yourself away in a back bedroom when you could bring your work and art to the gathering place? It's somewhere to cook up a storm of creativity and plop down your chopsticks and Chinese takeout container, too.

What next? God has made us endlessly inventive, like himself. I like it. 

What room would you turn into your playroom, if you could? 

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*Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits— who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. Psalm 103:1-5 NIV

*Here is another illustration Jesus used: 'The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants; it grows into a tree, and birds come and make nests in its branches.

*Jesus also used this illustration: 'The Kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.' Matthew 13:31–33 NLT

*Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Ephesians 5:1-2 NIV