More about being a masterpiece. Busy weekend but now I sit at my desk in Helsinki and breathe! The Lord is so awesome.
This fresco by Michelangelo brings me such joy. The creative process in myself and in others bring me great joy. Why? Because the Body of Christ MUST be on the cutting edge of creativity. We must be stirred to be creative. Isn't it time? The world has excelled and passed us by so it is time for us to be a people who move out in originality and creativity. Enough said.
Fingers touching across a wide expanse. God Himself reaching toward man. Each of us are a masterpiece within the ultimate masterpiece of creation itself. We are created in the image and likeness of our God and by the Holy Spirit have Christ in us, the hope of glory. God breathed into us and a spark of life was ignited to finally and fully live. Is there life outside of Christ? No, there is existence. Abundant life is in Christ and only in Christ. He is life. He is life in us. He is reality in us. So why not start to truly live? Why the fear? Why the hesitation?
Just some thoughts about this fresco. The essence of the fingers touching but not quite touching stir within me an excitement to reach out, to grasp, to dream, to fulfill, to create. Christ in me, the finished work of the perfection of the cross. Yes I am perfect in Him yet He works His creative perfection out in me day by day as I am conformed to the Living Word. In this journey of creativity and passion to know Him intimately and passionately, I press toward the mark of knowing Him. It is a journey. If Michelangelo had painted the fingers touching......well.........to me that would be.......what is the right word? Flat? One dimensional? Simply can't get the right word.
But I go on. To me, just to me, the fingers touching would have been so predictable, so mundane. But the fingers reaching out to each other. How glorious is that? The inner resolve to know Him, to reach for Him as He reaches to us. The unexpected glorious journey of knowing our God. Yes I know what Scripture says. We are complete in Him and the work of the cross is finished. But that is not what I am saying. I am not ignoring the finished work of Jesus Christ. I am looking at the daily journey. There is a joy in the journey after you discover the beauty of grace. Too many rest in a revelation of grace which is so one- dimensional. We are saved and then we rest in that and walk out of a sense of duty, boredom, religion or law. Yet fingers reaching towards each other show the journey of the relationship of God with man through Christ Jesus. I may be extending my interpretation here of this fresco but this is my blog, right? :) I have always been a visual child and my point of view along with many others like me are so needed in the Body of Christ to stir them out of the apathy of conviction without creativity.
It took years for Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel. The creative process evolved day by day within Him as a masterpiece was brought forth. Throughout this time of creating, he was seeing and hearing and painting and reading Scripture. The seed of creativity was locked inside of him until the right place, the right time, the right people were positioned in time.
That is like each of us. We are a locked revelation waiting to come forth as a masterpiece. Simply said but perhaps each of us truly need to think about that. We are a masterpiece in being created in the image and likeness of our creator and we are becoming a masterpiece through the creativity that flows from our life in our journey in Christ.
To obey God IN TIME often means that we find ourselves separated unto God and away from anything comfortable or familiar. That is true for us. How about you? I not only find myself in a strange place but I find something strange about myself in a strange place - how I respond and how I feel and what I do and who I meet. I find myself again in time in a new way when I am positioned somewhere that I am not totally familiar with in my life. That is often exciting but some days it can be tiring so I have to lean into all of God's strength and none of my own.
Again I want to say that what I miss being here in this time in my placement and not being somewhere else, can't be made up so I have to trust God that in obedience to Him, something greater is happening in my life. I can't often see it but I have to trust that when we obey God in time, there are many things happening that are bearing eternal fruit. For instance, here is one simple example. If I am separated from my kids and it is God's will for me to be here, perhaps ( and I am saying this with a full smile) it is because they need to learn to trust God for themselves in some way. I am, perhaps that hindrance when I place myself in time my own way or through guilt, or loneliness or some such thing. There is a cost to obedience to be stripped from the familiar and out of my control to simply trust Him. Make sense? I hope so.
Moving out in time in our own desires, in our own thoughts or perhaps even through guilt or loneliness that drives us is basically time that can be what we want, but not what God wants for us. Marvin and I have seen that God asks us to give our life and our time to Him. We place our lives, our desires, and our time in His hands and trust. There is a safety in God. Even when we don't understand why or how or what - we know that His ways are perfect and all things work for good for those called according to His purpose.
Life is lived in time. Life is lived in the fullness of His time and His way or our time and our way. I have found it is best to go the way God wants us to go. That is why I find myself in Finland right now. Would it have been my choice? Probably not but it is God's choice for me in time. And His desires are my desires forming day by day because there are many days that I love it here alongside many days that I miss Cali. :)
So where are you in all of this as you read this? When you are positioned in God's timing in His placement, there is peace even though there may be chaos all around you. That is where trust is required. When things on the home front may not be going well, we trust. When things around us are not going as we thought where we are, we trust. Simply stated, we trust God with our time in our lives. Step out in God's path for you even though it may call you to a separation from things that are familiar and comfortable. In God's light there is fullness of joy.
So how to sum this up to encourage you to focus on the Lord alone. When you are IN TIME in God's way and will for you, even though you may not understand it, your emotions may be running wild, and you feel chaos is stirring around you, it's okay. Speak peace to the storm and keep stepping out of the boat following Him. Don't look back and regret things that could have or should have been. The path in time in front of you is a great adventure. Don't feel guilty about all the things you did wrong. That is what the cross is for so stop carrying the burden yourself. Leave it all behind, no matter what age, what gender, what culture. You have this moment in this time......make the most of it and enjoy the journey.
The reason that I choose these collage pictures is because they are completely unpredictable. There is no specific form or structure. They develop as they are forming until someone says "Ah that's it!' Then the collage picture is formed and one is satisfied with the result. Collage, to me, is an ordered chaos that is birthed in the heart of an artist that abides by no particular rules except the desire and flow in their own heart. Collage is outrageous and defies rules! Just sayin' of course. :)
Collage = a piece of art made by sticking various different materials such as photographs and pieces of paper or fabric onto a backing.
A thought just occurred to me. Wow! A collage may be considered a less formal type of art. Perhaps it is considered not sophisticated enough. It may even be looked down on because it has no real appeal and looks like a child could do it. But, to me a collage is beautiful, even changing, ever forming with no set rules except what is in the artist's eyes. One needs to look at it. Really look at and let is speak to YOU.
Jesus was a type of collage. Don't you think? He came to those in a form that defied explanation unless one really opened their eyes to see the beauty of the whole piece. He appeared to be chaotic, without reputation, perhaps childlike, and a mess compared to the religious system. They did not see what He really was, just like the collage. When they tried to box Him in and reign Him in, He simply wouldn't allow that to happen. Look at this simple example. When the disciples tried to steer Him away from children, He rebuked them and simply replied:
Matthew 19: 14 'Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for such is the kingdom of heaven."
What a powerful statement! This statement puts iconic leaders in their place. This statement stops traffic. It simply says "Hey you guys don't have a clue what I see, what I feel or the ways of the kingdom! Move over and let these kids, these nobodies, come to me!" In this case, under these circumstances, I want to be childlike. Not childish but childlike.
I want to be a collage filled with the surprise of color and form that develops over time. I want to be a collage that no one can quite figure out. I want to be filled with color and texture and design for that is how God has created me. I started out this blog today wanting to write about something else but then this morning happened. And I knew I must press through the chains of predictability, the prison of mundane Christianity and move on. I may not know where or how but I am moving.
You see, there is a continual pressure put upon us just like the pressure put upon Jesus from the religious system and the disciples that walked with Him. Thank God I don't have people around me that put a pressure on me to conform and not to form in Him. But I do consistently face a religious system that tries to knock us out and they never stop trying in various and unique ways. They often make me feel like I am not quite right, not quite good enough. Or they act like we don't exist and pretend that we are not worthy of their attention. In years past, sad to say, I bowed to this actually thinking that something was not quite right with me but I am not developing into something else along the way. I am a collage that many try to put into a prescribed box but they can't. When they can't, then they label me as rebellious, angry, unsubmitted or some such thing. I refuse to accept that. I am FREE! I am a collage that is developing in a free form with the colors that God chooses to throw in, the form God chooses to design. Free to be exactly what the Lord tells me to be and nothing less than that. A little bit of venting goes a long way. I love blogging.
