Robert Ricciardelli
Everything in nature is an expression of God’s incredible passion for novelty and diversity. The hand that designed a frog also formed a daisy. God enjoys the tempest and rhythm of the ocean and the quiet unchangeableness of a barren desert. He delights in the four seasons and commands a different kind of beauty in each. All the creations of His earth are a part and reflection of His own manifold nature. Each one tells the hidden parable of God who prefers to have us discover His attributes rather than spell them out for us. He is silly as a goose and solemn as an owl, bold as a raging river and vulnerable as a mountain spring, wildly impetuous as thunder and distant as the scent of approaching rain. The seemingly endless plethora of creations that come from His prolific imagination permit us to catch a glimpse of His glorious backside. They allow us to see the outline of the negative of the brilliant original called the mind of God. We can glean, through the manifestation of His handiwork, the nuance of His personality and moods.
It stands a reason that this God who derives great pleasure from the sights, sounds, tastes, and sensations of His own imagination made manifested in nature, would glory even more in us….the beings made in His own image. He affectionately, painstakingly and with tender wisdom forms each one of us according to His skillful and deliberate satisfaction. He has meticulously and thoughtfully fashioned us with the creativity and detail of an artisan but with the affectionate care of a loving Father. That love assures us that we aren’t just half-baked vessels of clay placed on a shelf somewhere and forgotten, but we are His workmanship…His poiema…His poem (Eph. 2:10). A poem springs from the deepest place in the heart. It can’t be created without forethought and inspiration. As God’s poem, we are the reflection of His image, an expression of a part of who He is, the premeditated response of His deepest emotion.
One-of-a-kind Work of Art
God lovingly regards us and distinguishes each one of us as His precious, one-of-a-kind work of art. He hasn’t made us cookie cutter mass productions having the same dream, function or purpose. We’re not supposed to all look and act the same or do the same things because we aren’t the same and God never intended for us to be. When He formed each of us, He threw out the template. He doesn’t deal with us in the same way because He has wired our hearts uniquely. He handles each of us according to the distinct bent He imagined for us before He ever formed us.
How He performs for and directs one person, He doesn’t necessarily do for another. It has nothing to do with preference but about purpose. In John 21:18, Jesus describes to Peter the way he will die for God’s glory and then follows that description with a simple, “follow me.” In verse 21, Peter looks over at John and asks Jesus, “what about him?” Jesus answers, “If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow me.”
God does what He wishes with each of us according to our own calling and gifting for His own glory. He chooses to develop those gifts that He has deposited in us for the benefit of those we will touch and influence and it’s up to Him to decide how that will play out in our lives as we willingly yield to Him. He considers our minds, backgrounds, experiences, maturity and motivations when interacting with each of us. It’s true that we are all expected to follow God’s precepts. His corporate commands are the same for all of us and He isn’t wishy-washy or fickle in regards to obedience. Yet, when it comes to relating to us as individuals, He understands us and takes our hearts and minds into consideration. He “gets” us and knows why we act and react like we do. He kindly leans into us and patiently bends to our individuality, shaping us according to our own personality, position and destiny. He lovingly and purposely plans and directs our own tailored times of pruning and discipline and wisely chooses how and when to do so.
God Delights in Individual Personalities
Job 23:10 says, “But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.” When we place the emphasis on the word “I”, we see that God delights in working with our individual personalities and bents and He doesn’t impose a different personal journey for us that He didn’t first plant in us to begin with. He allows that root to freely grow in us and He enjoys watching the entire process under His loving guidance and tutoring. He doesn’t want His child to ever become unrecognizable in order to conform to some imagined religious stereotype or formula. He doesn’t expect the core of our humanity to be consumed during our refining process as we are being made into gold. He loves who we are with our warts and all, and prefers our acknowledgment and resigned surrender of them, to our hiding them or overcompensating for them. He loves to prove Himself strong in our weakness so that we will always choose an abiding dependency over self-sufficiency.
Fire will never burn away our humanness or change us into people who appear overly religious, alienating others for the sake of piety. We aren’t to be so far removed from the world that we can no longer relate with their struggles, pain or language. The world is dying to know that the grace bar isn’t unattainably high like we have led them to believe it is. In fact, it’s so low that only the lowly can find it. The lost must see that God is cheering them on, that He loves the poiema He has created them to be, that He is for them and not against them…that He is yearning to embrace imperfect human beings with questionable histories….that He doesn’t want to burn people up…He wants to turn them into gold.
Lisa Dickson
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