The Masterpiece

I have always been in awe at the display of God’s creative power. I have found myself standing slack jawed at the artistic work with which he displays daffodils at the first sight of spring. I love the array of azaleas in a Charlestonian April, the cobalt blue of the sky in the heat of the summer, and the Appalachians in the fall. Everywhere you look the creative artistry of God is present.

I always felt that I had a healthy appreciation of the beauty in the nature of things around me. I find myself marveling at the cooperation of a hive of bees, busy working together for a common cause. Knowing somehow instinctively that none of them can accomplish alone what all of them can accomplish together. I sat and watched as my flowers change from wilting to full attention, when given water to quench their thirst from the summer heat.

I have, I believe witnessed a great deal of the variety of God’s artistic creativity, and have had an appreciation for it; that is until I went to Alaska. Never in all my dreams could I have imagined such a place, colors as bright as the sun, mountains as high as the stars, snow so pristine it looked as if it would break when you if touched. It was a world full of beauty and contrast. Golden yellow birch trees contrasting against the evergreen of the spruce, rough jagged mountains coated with the softness of snow. Fast flowing rivers so shallow as to barely get ones feet wet when wading through them. It’s a world of beautiful contrast’s.

While I was there, the group of us camped at the base of the Gakona glacier, a river of ice that moved at the rate of 1.5 inches a year, winding its way through the valley depositing tons and tons of silt into the valley below. Contrast’s; white snow laden glaciers, depositing gray-green silt into the valley.

Clear-calm skies, all of the sudden in moment turning into gale force winds that all but blew everything we had away. The full moon rising on one side of the valley while the sun setting on the other. Stars appearing so close as to be able to touch them. Alaska truly is a place where the creative power of God can be experienced like no other. It truly is a place of beauty and contrast.

As I sat in those mountains over those weeks I pondered the prospect of our creation. A human being located in this isolated spot in this remote place on the planet. And I thought, “in comparison to all of this, we human beings really are insignificant.” Except; for the contrast’s. Surely the mountains are taller, and the sun is brighter. The flowers are more colorful, and the trees are more majestic. And while we may occupy only one area of this beautiful creation of God, our feeling of insignificance really lies within us. ----- Because the glacier is not created in the image of God. The mountains are not created in the image of God. The flowers, and trees, the valleys and the snow are not created in the image of God. So while I stood there in this vastness of God’s creation, I realized that “no” I am not insignificant to all of this, but I, as a human being am the most significant thing here, for I am an image bearer of the artist. I am his signature at the bottom of the masterpiece. I am a card carrying authentic original for which there are no others.

As I read and re-read the creation story of God in Genesis, I saw that God said that it “was good.” Then he created animals and said it “was good.” He created birds and fish, trees and plants and for each of these he said it “was good.” Then we find in the last part of chapter one where God created humans in his own image and said “it was very good” the exclamation point on creation. The signature at the bottom of the masterpiece: was you.

I see people all too often who undermine their importance to this world, people who forget just whose image they bear. People who watch a rose form from a bud and wonder; “am I as intricate as this?” I see people whose imagination is their only hope of discovery; whose dreams remain only a nightly occurrence. People who ponder their worth and simply forget they are image bearers.

Nothing else in all of creation is as valuable to God as you are. “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they?” Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 6. Because when it is all said and done; Jesus did not die for the snow covered mountains, he was not nailed to the cross for the daffodils, or the rose. His resurrection will not alter the fate of the glacier. ----- He died for his most precious of creations; YOU. The signature on the masterpiece, The exclamation point on creation. The most valued of all there is.

I had never thought about that before, oh I new we were created in the image of God, I understood that we were important to him, and that we were treasured. It just seems sometimes that God takes special care, at certain moments of our lives and says; “hey, don’t just read about me, but listen to me.” It is God’s careful intentional wake up call to all of us. I believe God does that for us all from time to time. I also believe some of us choose not to listen. As I stood there in the valley of the Gakona glacier, somewhere in Alaska, I knew that I was important to God, the insignificance I felt looking at all those beautiful snow laden mountains, was really an admiration of his artistic ability. It was the thesis statement for which human beings are the punctuation. It was an intrinsic reality that I am an image bearer of the creator, the signature on his masterpiece.

I believe all of us carry the same importance in God’s eyes. All of us share that place on the canvas that tells all who look, who we are. We share a place in history, a moment in time, a significance to the creation, for we are the image bearers of the artist.