One of the reasons I so enjoy refinishing furniture is that when I stand back and look at a piece that I have worked hard on, and I see what it was and what it has become, I get a sense of accomplishment.

This sensation is that different from the one I get when I have fed, bathed, and tucked in my children, and go back to check on them and see that they are asleep. I imagine for some this is the same sensation they get when they write a poem, or play a difficult piece of music, or even just look over a newly mowed lawn, take a moment to smell the fresh cut grass, and sigh in joy over what they have done.

I was thinking about why all of us, in so many varied ways, get this joy derived from the completion of a task, and I couldn’t help thinking about our relationship with the God who made us.

We know that God delighted in His creation as he was making it. We know his delight in his work as he hung the stars in the heavens, and he filled the waters and the skies with all the beautiful and endlessly varied birds and creatures of the sea. We hear of how he makes the flowers and the trees and grass, and places within them the lion, the lamb, and all manner of animal in between. And we hear how, almost with that same joyous sigh, afterwards He looks upon it and has but one utterance. “It is good.”

And then so too how he must have delighted in lifting the dust from the earth, and molding it and filling it with his Spirit, and creating the crown jewel of his creation, the first man Adam, who He is so pleased with, He calls Him made in his own image.

I think about how we have this God who, among His many other attributes, chiefly among them is that he is a Creator. I think of the colors of creations: the deep neons and teals found in the deepest depths of the oceans, and the bright and beautiful pastels of the leaves and flowers. Is their a finer red than that of the cardinal, a fairer violet than the puma’s fur? And with humanity, what joy it must have given God to use all his pallet, and with what beautiful divinity God has painted us in colors of eyes, of skin, or hair. We are a wonderous tapestry with a master artist at the helm indeed.

And this brings me to a simple thought this morning: what does it mean to be made “in the image of God”? I think one aspect is that God has made us like Him in this way: we love to create! We are, ourselves, little images of God, using the things God has given us, taking from the trees and taking our notes from the patterns and colors and beauty He has placed around us, and implementing them to further His creation.

He took the world and created it from nothing. And now we take what He has made, and in our own little way, in His image, we take the children He’s given us and raise them to adults. We take the words He’s given us and turn them into poems. We take the sounds He’s given us and turn them into songs. We even take the grass in our yards, and manicure it, because it’s the little piece of land he’s given us to care for.

And me, well, I also like to take a piece of furniture, and being the mini image of my Creator I am, I take joy in making it new again. And I cannot but help feeling a little closer to Him whenever I complete a new piece, step back and look upon it, and with a joyous sigh simply say, “it is good”.

Happy painting everyone! Written with help by my loving husband.- Aj Neugebauer 🙂

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