Day #6: Song Animated Dust.
[If you want to know how and why this devotional came into existence feel free to read this]
What you will need:
- A Bible
- This Devotional
- Some Coloring Utensils
- And a print out of this awesome coloring sheet designed by Nic Mansfield (Instagram and twitter)(Here is the week #1 sheet)
Theme: Origins
Passage for March 6th 2017: Genesis 2:4-7
Bars from “Blessing”:
“Chisel me into stone, prayer whistle me into song air.”
A Thought:
In my early 20’s, I went through a phase where I thought I was an artist. When this flawed notion joined forces with my stereotypical 20 something angst to question authority, I may have tried my hand at a few “art projects" that lets just say... lacked. I remember wanting to make a “statement” about how "the news is controlled by corporate interests” or whatever I had just read in Adbusters. I made a laughable banksyesque stencil of a local ABC news anchor declaring, with all the poetic tact of a baseball bat, “Bazi Kanani tells you what to think.” While my artistic career was lackluster, I was trying to embody an idea rooted in scripture. Our Heavenly Father is a creator and his kids are created to do likewise.
Genesis 2 tells us God forms humans from dust and breath. The poetry connotes that God is an artist creating a masterpiece. There sentiment is echoed in Jeremiah 18, where the prophet is shown how God’s people are being formed in a similar way that a potter forms clay. In addition, God animates the dust He is forming with His very breath. This is a theme carried over from Genesis 1 where God’s Spirit (the Hebrew word for "Spirit" can also be translated “wind”) progressively, over time, created order out of chaos.
Humanity is God’s sculpture. Humanity is God’s song.
Imagine a song, however, with just one note. Imagine a sculptor showing a fresh slab of stone from the quarry as a masterpiece. Imagine a potter showing a pile of clay and passing it off as a pot. We are not finished products. Everyone of us, and the world we inhabit, are works in progress. This is why, in Genesis 1, God doesn’t call His creation “perfect” but “very good.” Perfection cannot be improved upon but something very good can be. Animated by the Spirit of God, humans are called to make the very good, in us and the world, better.
Here are the questions I am contemplating today: What are the parts of God’s character He has chiseled into me? How am I called to help make this very good world better?
Mediation: Psalm 139:15-16
Read the whole passage through once and pick a phrase that is sticking out to you. Read that phrase 2-3 times and choose a single word. As you color today, have a conversation with the Lord about what He is speaking to you through that one word.