Part 14

Been a while since I have posted, I apologize for that. Life has just been busy! Hopefully we are back on track now. 

You can tell a lot about a person by their creation. A painting reveals much about a painter. The colors she or he chose. The objects he desire to paint. The details she chooses to put in or leave out. The painting is an extension of the painter. A cabinet will tell you a lot about a carpenter: round edges or square? Did he sand the surface carefully by hand or use a electric sander? Are the drawers dove tailed or just nailed together? A cabinet is an extension of the carpenter. 

As much as you can tell about the painter by their painting, or the carpenter by their cabinet, you cannot know the actual painter or the carpenter through their creation.  You have to get to know the person.  In order to do get to know them you have to spend time with them. You have to learn about them. You have to know them. And here is the cool thing; once you know them, their actual creation, the painting or cabinet, will come even more to life. The creation will make even more sense once the creator is known more fully. The obscurity and dark colors of the painting will make more sense in light of the dark past of the painter. The intrinsic detail of the cabinet will make sense in light of a carpenter who grew up with a father who could never be pleased. Or the painter choosing to paint mountains will make more sense when you know how much peace the mountains bring the painter. Or the smooth surface of hand sanded wood will make more sense when you realize the joy of the carpenter feeling the wood and smelling the wood as they work with is slowly and methodically.  Something that once made little sense about the creation can all the sudden make complete sense when the creator is known. 

The bible talks a lot about us (human kind) worshiping the created. It starts at the beginning when our original parents chose the created tree over the Creator God. And it has not let up since. The man still worships his work. The woman still worships the man. The parents still worship the children. The environmentalist still worships the environment. The alcoholic still worships the alcohol. On and on it goes. The heart is crying for the Creator, but instead settles for the creation.  Even though the creation is just a reflection of the creator. 

The sun shines on the moon from the other side of the earth at night. The reason we can see the moon is because the sun bounces light off of it. Without the sun, we would not see the moon. However, the light from the moon is not "moonlight" it is still sunlight, it just bounces off the moon first. But the moon is not the sun, it is a refection of the sun. Just like the creation is not the Creator, it is a reflection of the Creator. 

Just like the sun and moon we would not see anything in the created were it not for the Creator. The Creator gives the created life. The Creator gives the created meaning. The created is only a reflection of the Creator. It is a shadow. We can know things about the Creator through the created, but if we want to know the Creator we have to do that through a relationship. 

This is where it gets tricky, because God cannot be physically seen or touched or heard. His creation can, but he cannot. So when we say we want a relationship to the Creator, there is only one way to have a relationship; faith. "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1). 

The question becomes, how do I have a relationship with a God I cannot talk to, or hear from? And in the question lies the answer. You have a relationship by talking to and hearing from Him. But it's only by faith. You talk through prayer, you hear through his word. But not just reading his word; studying his word over and over. Meditating on his word for hours. Taking retreats with just you and God and staying soaked in his presence. And trusting in a God you cannot talk to or hear from but trusting that you are talking to and hearing from him. 

Now for the grand finale, your gonna love this; once you come to know the Creator God more and more, the more his creation will make sense. The more the sky will look more blue, the more the taste of food will bring joy and not addiction. The more relationships will point to him and not self. The more you know the Creator God the more you will enjoy his creation, but not worship it. Instead, you will worship the Creator God who is to be forever praised, Amen.