God the Artist

For as long as I can remember I have had this need to create. Whether it was the coloring book pages, the collage of Teen-Beat magazine hearth throbs I strategically placed on my bedroom walls, paintings done in art class, doodles, sketches etc. It didn't matter, I felt the most free, the most sense of belonging when I was creating. There was this ethereal sense of other worldliness that happened in those moments. A time where my soul was at is happiest, at it's most content. Not until the last few years have I begun to understand all of this.

As I dive deeper into what it means to be an artist, a Christian artist and discover new things about God that previously I didn't fully understand or realize I am just in awe. Sure you read Genesis and it tells us that God created the heavens and the earth. So what. He needed a place to put us right? But oh man, when you read those chapters with the heart of an artist you begin to realize that it's more than just a place to put us. God has poured out His soul into each thing He created. I think of how I feel when I get an idea for a painting and I set the idea onto canvas and it comes together just as I imagined, the rush of euphoria that happens is unexplainable. To begin to fully grasp that moment when God looked at His creation and saw that it was good, man, what a rush that must've been! That knowing that you have just put together something that is just so good, and so right and so exactly what you've imagined is like nothing else.

I've read the Bible, in it's entirety and some books or passages more than others. One I've read a few times but read begrudgingly and with great annoyance starts in Exodus 36. The fact that God feels it's necessary to tell us all about the Tent of Meeting and all it's specifications and dimensions and how each and every thing that goes in the Tent of Meeting oh my goodness what is the point to all of this? Some people complain about all the begets of the Old Testament, not me, I complain about the Tent of Meeting. Or at least I used to. Did you read the part where God gave certain people the skill and talent to create things out of gold or fabric? God used His people to create something for Him. Wow! How could I have missed that all these years? I just find it fascinating that the one that that has made me the craziest is now the one thing that I find the most amazing.

In my 40 or so years of being a Christian I've failed to see God in the role of an artist. I never made the connection of the word Creator to the word Artist .Sure I understood in my head that He created everything, but some how it never got through to my soul that He created everything. I think I've been so caught up in the awe of who He is and what He has done for me, that I failed to see part of His heart. I've been so busy  trying to understand what He has in store for me and what His will for my life is, that I failed to just get to know who He is.

I just love this journey I am on, how awesome it is to always learn new things about God. However, I just shake my head because I just can't understand how I missed this. Wonder what else I've missed....