Organizing the box of treasured old watches and watch parts I was amazed at the intricacy, design and amazingly small scale.  A couple hours spent sorting through them and seeing more and more possibilities for art projects, jewelry, photographs, etc. But I kept coming back to how beautiful the little timepieces were all by themselves. 

In such a compact space, there are such small and delicate parts that fit and work together, with precision, with a measured accuracy.  There are screws, gears, and springs, of all different sizes.  And the composition encased in metal.  Dials and small hands, all of which create a larger beauty when put together than they could as interesting little pieces all by themselves.

I wondered about the individual who had collected all these pieces to work on, wrapping individual watches in little pieces of thin paper and labeling little plastic bins of higher end watches.  I wondered at the mind that would use thin pieces of paper and old cat food cans as their sorting system. 

But even if this treasure trove came from a collector, someone made them, engineered them and constructed them, and I marveled.  I still do.

There was a sense of the beauty of these pieces of art and also of the mind and personality of the creator behind them.

I realized that the single cell, a single atom, DNA, were far smaller, more complex and too, pointed to the mind and personality of a designer.

Teachers in both the Old and New Testaments pointed to created things to impart some truth.  Consider the ant…Consider the birds…Consider the lilies…

Often time the created order also was a pointed reminder of the care shown by the Creator for his creation.

Sometimes, awe in the face of creation, at even being noticed in such a grand piece of art

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
              The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;

What is man that You take thought of him,
                And the son of man that You care for him?

Creation of things of beauty can often remind us to consider the creator.  That’s what happens every time I look at these little works of art, and then too I am reminded to consider the Creator.

I share this little treasure with you and pray it may be a silent witness to the existence of a Creator, who has drawn near to your life, closer than you may know.

­As I considered how to share these little gems I thought it best to let them just be a little picture themselves, and not try to add too much visually to their intricate and delicate beauty.  They are encased in small watchmaker tins, the actual storage bin less frugal watchmakers and watch repairmen would use to sort out watches and parts.  The images on the sides are from the above mentioned examples in the scriptures, the ant, the birds and the lilies.

“Art for art’s sake,” the oft quoted, bohemian creed of sophisticated, individual freedom of expression for the sole purpose of expression itself, ain’t half wrong.

Let me explain.

Foundational to an understanding of this thing we call humanity, is that we were created in God’s image, Imago Dei in Latin.  And we first encounter God in scriptures as eternal, self existing, all powerful and creating. 

Therefore being creative (not creating out of nothing, ex nihilo, as God created) is to express that Image that we bear.

And what better case could be made for creating for the sake of creating (or for making abstract art) than the giraffe.  What purpose does it serve?  Does it have to?  Simply striking and unlike other land mammals but still enough like them to be recognized, the giraffe, just fun to look at. 

There is much in this world that could be given as examples of beauty for beauty’s sake, created because it may in fact just be fun to create.

But I have experienced taking what is meant for good and abusing it and often destroying it in my own life. So while it is not intrinsically evil or wrong, I suspect that to subscribe to “art for art’s sake” as the only rationale I can make for creating, there is a fair chance I would idolize my creation, my ability, my freedom, etc and make a mess out of something that was meant to be a blessing.

Philip Graham Ryken’s book Art for God’s Sake is insightful and encouraging.  He sets forth biblical examples of God mandating artistry of all kinds, calling artisans by name and preparing them.  One of the interesting insights was that the first men to mentioned as filled with God’s Spirit are the artisans called to create the tabernacle.  Not preachers, not scholars, not healers or apostles, but artisans.

The book looks at the rocky relationship between the church and art, the art as a Christian vocation, the biblical evidence that supports all kinds of art forms and biblical standards of quality for the arts; goodness, beauty, truth, and finally art that glorifies God.

He is also clear that to “God’s glory” doesn’t mean it has to be evangelistic or didactic.  It is an expression of love and doesn’t have to have a utilitarian function to glorify God; our own encounter with creation echoes that truth.

Beyond laying out a biblical support of and mandate to do art, the best summary of insight of this great little book for me comes from Ryken himself,

Thus the true purpose of art is the same as the true purpose of anything: it is not for ourselves or for our own self-expression, but for the service of others and the glory of God. Or to put all of this another way, making art is an expression of our love—love for God and love for our neighbor.

 “No one can serve two masters” Matt 6:24

Just about finished working on a piece, reflecting on my own need to “dethrone” myself (again) from the central place in my heart and life, and surrender again and trust God’s intentions for my life, versus my own designs.

During my own education and career ups and downs this year (among many great blessings, as well) I prayed, I begged, I expected, I demanded, and pretty much wore myself out looking for God’s provision (as I understood it should be). It still hasn’t come the way I demanded it, but what has come out of this time of suffering has been a keen awareness of how much I have sought to maintain control of my life, live by principles from the scriptures and with faith in God for the big stuff, and call the shots where everything else is concerned.

It hasn’t worked.

I found myself angry and chaffing at God’s wasteful (mis)management of my life, clearly I have too much to offer to be so underemployed (not to mention I hate the lack of money and prestige).

What is God thinking?

And in that, I have found the need to make a greater surrender to the One who has bought me at such a high price to Himself that I should be ashamed that I have doubted His goodwill.

God is no fool, and my life is not wasted by being entrusted to Him. Though I have been unhappy with my circumstances, as I have come to a greater surrender (one of many lifelong such encounters, I expect) there is a joy in my heart that doesn’t match my surroundings or make sense to me.

This piece was a simple reflection of that need to unseat myself from power and once again look to Jesus, my Savior and Lord, trusting not only in His love and good will, but also His grace to help me surrender afresh.

I was inspired to illustrate all this in a small space, using religious imagery (Christ knocking at the door, based on Rev 3:20), the images of revolution and overthrow, and old images I found. The verse over the heart box is from Matthew 6:24, stated above, no one can serve two masters. The ropes pulling down the king’s statue are crimson, a nod to the scarlet thread, a shadow of Christ’s blood sacrifice that saves us from our sin. It is only through the power of the cross of Christ that we can experience the power that changes us, reminding me that “all that this Grace asks, it provides.”

For the past seven months I have agonized at times at how to accurately share the good news with my friends since returning to faith in God’s incredible grace and reach for us through the cross.  I have struggled in part, because I have been so overwhelmed by the incredible sense of God’s love.  A love that cost Him dearly to express, the price of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for the sin of the world.  A free gift that was costly to the Giver, and from my own experience, largely misunderstood and unappreciated by those it was meant for.

This amazing knowledge, which has started to become my most important treasure, I have been eager to share.  Not out of religious duty, but from an overwhelming sense of how truly amazing grace is.  And not just for those “wretched” sinners out there, but to all the people I know who need to be embraced by grace, myself first among them.

Yet after every encounter  with this grace I find myself feeling more and more inadequate to the task, there is simply no way I can share this faith and have it be understood or appreciated and accepted.  I know this because after 10+ years in religious circles, it took being on the brink of losing everything I had to realize God’s grace was always there and available to me.

And so I kept on in silence, overwhelmed by this amazing burden.

And then Solomon dedicated the Temple.

It was a text in church, recently one Sunday evening.  Solomon, kneeling down, after completing years of work on the Temple in Jerusalem, hands raised and he asks aloud,

But will God indeed dwell with mankind on the earth?

Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You; how much less this house which I have built.

I realized that I thought my problem was new, that somehow, I alone had been the first to be overwhelmed by the knowledge of God’s great love and my inability to express it to others.

King Solomon had pondered the question.  Could God be contained in a temple made with the hands of humans?  The very heavens couldn’t contain Him, would he be able to dwell among men in a building, however grand?

26 letters, thousands of words, yet it was hopeless to expect that my words could ever do this love, this grace, justice, by my frail attempts to contain it in words alone.

In the winter I took apart an old typewriter, for the keys, the letters and gears and springs that have all made their way into pieces of art I have made. But I kept the typewriter shell; my wife suggested it may be useful in some way later on. 

As I was up one night musing on God’s grace and my inability, I realized that useless typewriter was a perfect metaphor for my own inability to communicate through words the greatness of God’s reach for us, and if a message came from it, that would be a miracle.

But recently as I have felt compelled to live this grace out more fully, I have been startled that I am in fact a letter, written by God to all who I come in contact with, and my words are nearly silent in comparison to the deeds seen by all.  And so I am more dependent for grace than before and more inadequate to the task than ever. 

But God has contented Himself to dwell in a temple not made with human hands and so it goes…

words fail, but love never fails.