The Art of the Blend

 

“God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.”

—1 Corinthians 12:18

When we think of the work of an artist who works with oil paint, we often neglect to consider the artistic competence and sensitivity needed to prepare the paint used for the project. A good artist considers the pigments of color and the medium through which to use those colors. He or she also chooses between solvents for the viscosity (thickness) of the paint and for the varnish that will give the appropriate glossiness to the finished work.

Perfumers also study their art by learning about the distinguishing characteristics of fragrances. Because of the keen sense of smell they must possess, the most skilled ones of these people get dubbed “The Noses” by those in that field. Such perfumers know the strengths and power of each fragrance, and they carefully blend only those elements which augment the others.

Similarly, organists exhibit concern about what choices they make in registering the sounds for each piece of music they play. As I listened carefully with my eyes closed, my first organ teacher quizzed me to give the names of each pipe. Is the sound a reed, a flute, a diapason, or a string? Does it match the intended mood the composer of the music requires for this particular piece? Is one stop too sharp to play alongside another because it will cover the sound or blend poorly?

God, the most creative of all artists, looks at His church in much the same way as these other professionals look at the works they produce. He desires to create something beautiful for His world out of the flesh and blood of His people in specific locations. Look around at those in your local church. God has placed, in your church, people of various ages, various races, various abilities, and various limitations.

He has carefully gifted His people with talents, abilities, and with a wide range of life experiences. Children love to gather around old Uncle Pete because of his kind and loving ways. Grandma Pearl gets everyone laughing each time they talk with her. Roy has such knowledge of Scripture that people flock to his class. And, Ruby sings like an angel and brings the Holy Spirit near whenever the congregation hears her voice.

Carrie and Fred have owned a successful business for many years and they freely give of the wealth God has provided them. They love to see God’s church blessed through their giving. Beverly doesn’t have money or abilities to teach, but when she gets in the kitchen, she blesses the entire congregation through the foods that she so lovingly prepares.

God also places His people in churches where they need growth and maturity—perhaps even through learning to get along with others who see things in opposite ways from them. He is creating a beautiful body of work for His glory. We should stand in awe of His workmanship.

Look at those in your church as instruments in God’s hands, as gifts to you and others, and see yourself in a way that makes you happy to share with others the qualities that God has given you. Stand back and look at the picture God is painting in your congregation. Take time to smell the aroma of His blessing. Pause, in a quiet moment, to hear the music of His joy in your midst.

Praise the Artist of Heaven today for the magnificently creative way He has blended the people in your church into a powerful force for His Kingdom!

 

 

Handiwork

 

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”

—Psalm 19:1 KJV

I so much appreciate “handiwork.” From her youth onward, my grandmother had the reputation as a particularly fine seamstress. I own a dress she made for a toddler with the tiniest handmade button holes. Today, I admire her talent more than a hundred years after she first produced this amazing dress.

My nephew has a business carving and painting all kinds of colorful wooden lures for salt water anglers. No one would doubt his talented handiwork. He has become someone who now has a national reputation as a fine craftsman.

My late sister painted large murals, crafted thousands of words of pen and ink calligraphy, and, with a dainty hand in the tradition of our grandmother, sewed many pillows and articles of clothing decorated with buttons and ribbons.

Considering those individuals to whom God has given uniue talent, in the Early Church a disciple of Jesus, a woman named Dorcas, became sick and died. Acts 9:39 records this sentence:

All the widows stood around him [Peter], crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.

This passage of Scripture demonstrates to me that, just as everywhere and at all times God reveals His handiwork through the marvelous creation of our universe, He has also created humankind in His image with the same abilities to create amazing items for themselves. Creation, and all kinds of art, did not just happen for the utilitarian needs of humans. God gave humans this ability, so that they could create beauty.

Just as God looked at His creation and exclaimed that what He had made was good (Genesis 1), He has allowed us the joy of creating, too. Besides that, He enables us to feel enjoyment in the handiwork of others. In so doing, we derive pleasure and can offer praise in the revelation of Himself that we see in human creativity.

Psalm 8 tells us that God has set His glory above the heavens. God reveals His inherent glory. A few verses later, the Psalmist writes that God has crowned man with glory. Our glory derives from His glory. Every creature shows the glory of the Creator in some way. The more we know this great Creator-God, the more beautiful and glorious we become, as His image bearers.

Let us thank God today for the ways in which His glory, His creative beauty, and His magnificent design, shows forth in our lives and in the lives of those we know. All of this handiwork should prompt us to offer our praise and worship to such a breathtakingly glorious God.

 

 

Perspective

 

“He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers.”

—Isaiah 40:22

You may remember the 1989 movie, “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” in which a scientist father accidently shrinks his two teen-age children and two of their friends. This poses all kinds of dangerous threats to these teens, as they battle to stay away from danger while their father searches for them.

Sometimes our perspective gets out of whack, just as things did in this movie. We see problems that loom nearby in such a way that we dwarf God by allowing Him to fall away into the background. In such a case, we need an adjustment to our perspective.

Many of the Psalms reveal the way in which saints of the past had to deal with their perspective. Some Psalms begin with tales of woes too large with which the Psalmists can cope. However, once they get a different view of God, the enormity of their problems contract to a much more manageable size.

In Psalm 73, Asaph, the musician, begins his Psalm remembering how he had nearly slipped away because he was looking at the prosperity and the seeming good luck of the wicked. He says he felt oppressed until he entered God’s sanctuary and got a different perspective. He ends this Psalm praising God’s goodness and sharing his gratitude for the riches of God’s grace.

Psalm 73:25-26 give us a glimpse of Asaph’s change in perspective:

Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Many times the Psalmists have to remind themselves of the greatness of God. They do this by talking directly to themselves through the words they write in their Psalms. This same kind of reminder can stir us, as well. We can see God’s proper perspective: in our church services, or after a prolonged period of time spent in reading His written Word. When this happens, we will be able to see the extent of our woes in a much clearer way. We can shrink them down to size and allow God to show us His power and wisdom that rule over us.

I like the way that Paul explains the process of moving from despair to faith by means of gaining a whole new perspective, as recorded in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18:

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

It’s important for us to remember that a proper perspective can change everything!

 

 

The Devil and Cinderella

 

“Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

—1 Peter 5:8

Cinderella, the beauty of her family, lived her life by the stories her stepsisters told her and in the mockery and servitude in which they made her live. She willingly allowed them to pile the dirty jobs on her and to intimidate her into believing she wasn’t fit to attend the ball she prepared them to attend.

In their book, The Sacred Romance, Brent Curtis and John Eldredge liken many of us to this poor housemaid. The authors suggest that we believe the lies that we may have heard all our lives, instigated by our real enemy, Satan himself.

This very trickery worked on Eve in the Garden of Eden when Satan questioned her—as recorded in Genesis 3—and asked “Did God really say?”

Unsuccessfully, Satan tried these same tactics on our Savior when He went into the wilderness of temptation before He began His public ministry. Satan tried to put doubts into Jesus’ mind over God’s plan, as well as doubts about His place in it, using such statements as “If you are the Son of God …” found in Luke 4:3, 9.

Satan likes to tell false stories to us, as well. Sometimes he uses the voices of family members or classmates, causing us to believe the lies he tells us. If we allow him to convince us, our whole lives can feel useless and pointless, unaware of the Prince of Peace who has a new name, a new nature, and a new ever-after for us.

Here’s how the authors of The Sacred Romance put it: ¹

Fortunately for Cinderella, the prince is a romantic who will not give up searching the city until he has found her, and they live happily ever after. And so it will be with us who are the beloved of the great Prince who is Jesus. It is this destiny that so enrages our enemy and makes him determined to destroy the love affair that he can never have a part in.

Have you been listening to the wrong voices? Let God’s written Word, His great Love Letter to us, fill your mind and heart. And, accept from Him the invitation to see yourself as a Child of the King with a royal purpose. Allow Him to invite you to the singing and praising of God’s people, where you will find a sense of belonging and true rejoicing.

______________________

1 Curtis, Brent, and John Eldredge. The Sacred Romance. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997, p. 110.