Category: create

Potential: Capable of Development into Actuality

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
(Ephesians 2: 7-10 The Message)
 
 
 
When I look at a blank canvas or a blank page or a blank screen, I see potential. It may look like nothing, but really it’s a space waiting for expression. I love how God created us to be an expression of His salvation. He saves us. He showers us with grace and kindness. He invites us to join in His work. God gives us the capabilities, the energy and the creativity to do what we were formed to do. Each of us has a unique set of skills, strengths and experiences to offer. No two of us have the same role. Each one of us is honored to be here, now for His purposes.
 
 
As I look at the potential of the empty spaces in my life, I wonder what does God have in store. Where will He lead me next? Will he add a stroke of fiery orange or mellow yellow? Is there anything He needs to edit in my life? Does He look for a better synonym to describe who I am in order to communicate His love and grace? What reality am I missing out on because I am so consumed with my current troubles instead of gazing into His beautiful face?
 
 
What joy God must experience as He adds another layer of color to our life, a defining line and just the write word to finish our sentence. Let’s live out our God-created identities, graciously and generously living with one another, just like God lives toward us! (Matthew 5:48 The Message) I keep repeating that refrain to myself and to you, so that it will become an actuality and second nature to love like God loves. To love others and ourselves in our wondrous uniqueness!
 
 
 
Will you ask God to give you
a word that describes you to Him?
 
( I would love it if you shared that word in the comments, so we can see what God thinks of His daughters and sons!)
 
 
Linking up with Soli Deo Gloria Party
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Posted on by kelrohlf 7

Bare: Open to View; Exposed

I form the light and create darkness,
I make peace and create calamity;
I, the Lord, do all these things.
(Isaiah 45:7 NKJV)

 
Bare canvas, what will you reveal? Our potential placed upon the easels.


She asks, are you nervous?

I was nervous. How did she know? She’s my sister.


At the art supply store, her canvas was grabbed up and in her hand.
Aren’t you going to look around?
Nope, let’s go. I want to paint.
I tag behind her to the checkout counter. We head home.



Barely in the door, I grab the easels, paints and brushes.

The bare canvas asks for paint, for brush strokes. We feel exposed. What color should we use? We close our eyes and then pick. She mixes gray. I decisively choose black. We try different techniques. The broad side of the brush, then the narrow, and then swish and skip the brush.

I pause to photograph our beginnings.
 
 

 

 

Little by little we unfold. Immersed in the process, we pause occasionally to peek at each other’s progress. We applaud; we interpret, adding meaning to each other’s work. I am glad she wanted to paint today.

How do we know when it’s finished, she inquires.

I don’t know. Just keep painting.

And then slowly, we come to completion. She adds a little more detail. We marvel at what we’ve done. We encourage each other to sign our work. We each add two little initials, claiming and saying yes to ourselves.

 

“Untitled” by Juniper Gillian
 
 
“Many Suns Rising” by Kel Rohlf

 
 

 Linking up with:

Posted on by kelrohlf 5

Creation: An Original Work of Art

 
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
(Psalm 51:10 NIV)




Digging into the archives today . . . I wrote this post last winter.

As I was mulling over why I desire  the act of making, inventing or producing something, this post came to mind. 

So I offer this post as an offering of praise to our Creator:



 As you survey all the materials within your reach, your artist’s eye alights upon dirt—the very medium for growth.

And then you exclaim, “This will do. Yes, indeed. I see it. I will form man out of nothing, yet something.”

In your mercy you choose dust-soil-earth to become the seedbed of humanity. You gather up handfuls mixing it with water—maybe even your own sweat and blood. Wiping sweat from your brow you form the man you imagined. In your work did you pick up a stick to sculpt the features of his face? No, I see you taking this lump of clay into your hands deliberately shaping a body, a forehead, an ear, eyes and a nose.

You are plying your finishing touches, when you take a moment to step back to observe your progress on his face—and a smile breaks across your own. You add a mouth with two lips desiring that he be able to form words just like you. You bend over his form kissing his lips with the breath of life.

Did Adam cough and shudder awake? Did his eyes flutter open, seeing for the first time, the One who sees him—and did he smile back? You reach out your hand lifting him from the ground, the very soil that became his essence—mixed with water and imbued with life giving oxygen. You introduce him to your world.

Later you would see that he needed companionship. You would invite him to recline on that same ground, to reach into his side to create a suitable companion—to eat bread with, to amble and admire the garden together and to commune with their Maker.

Did you add the same mixture of soil and water to that rib? Was the rib a structure to build, to sculpt and to shape this next being around—a female image bearer? I imagine that your desire to make another human hinges on the joy and satisfaction you experienced in making the first. Similar, but different.

This comes with a womb. Did you knit together her inner person before forming the body around this cradle of civilization? A being that would be able to produce fruit—not like a tree, but in a mysterious, soul-drenched way. In her womb would combine blood, water and soil cells.

Another soul born out of two. A new way of conceiving life. Their bodies designed to become one in the most intimate, delicate and creative act.

An act of love.




Posted on by kelrohlf 2