They say the grass is greener on the other side. As a musician, I’ve spent way too many moments wishing I was an artist instead of a pianist. My mom paints, my dad sketches. He can draw these beautifully perfect architectural lines. Even my brother excelled at art class when he was little while I could barely draw a stick figure. As I’ve aged, I’ve come to see art in a different way, and you know what? I am an artist, except my medium is music. You are an artist, too! Did you know that? Do you like to craft, cook, garden, knit, sew, build, write, take photographs, edit videos? Art! All art! Are you surprised? Because you shouldn’t be. We are created in God’s image afterall, and God is the great artist. His medium is Creation: the universe, our precious earth, and us. Humans.
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This weeks scripture is Jeremiah 18:1-11 where God tells the prophet, Jeremiah, to go down to the potter's house to hear a word from the Lord.
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A response to the Word
Our God, the great artist, who has brought us up out of the dirt, washed us in the water, pounded and kneaded us until we were ready to be shaped by his hand. He smooths our lines of worry, pulls the walls of our earthly vessels up, deep enough to contain the power of the Holy Spirit. Carves his word upon our hearts, then watches with bated breath as his creation falls again and again.
Like clay in the hand of the Potter, so are you in my hand. Like clay in the hand of the Potter, you are all the work of my hand. But if you fail. If you are marred, misshapen, wobbly, unbalanced, I will remake you. I will reform the vessel and start anew.
We are God’s art. We are His creation. Beautiful, flawed, but loved, and so, so worthy of redemption.