{"id":31830,"date":"2021-04-12T03:30:53","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T10:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/?p=31830"},"modified":"2021-04-09T20:51:10","modified_gmt":"2021-04-10T03:51:10","slug":"april-12-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2021\/04\/12\/april-12-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"April 12, 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div><\/div><\/div>

\u201cFor we are God\u2019s handiwork<\/span><\/i> (NIV), <\/span>workmanship<\/span><\/i> (NKJV), <\/span>that which is made <\/span><\/i>(Strong\u2019s)\u2026\u201d Ephesians 2:10a<\/span><\/p>\n

Watercolors<\/b><\/h2>\n

Today, I tried my hand at using watercolors. I told my family at Christmas that I wanted to learn how to paint with watercolors, and in turn received several items related to that craft. I had collected a few how-to books over the past couple of years so I pulled them out and glanced through them. I watched a couple of YouTube videos by watercolor artists. I took out my supplies, organized everything, got a fresh bowl of water, pulled a sheet of watercolor paper from the pad, squeezed a few colors from the tubes onto the palette, and finally sat with brush in hand, staring at the blank page.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Just play<\/span><\/i>, I told myself. <\/span>Learn. Grow. Experience. Do something different. Try it.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

A stroke of green went down. Then brown in a different direction. Then yellow. I sat back to look at it, as if I was Rembrandt with a masterpiece. The green was in an approximate placement of grass, the brown in the placement of a tree trunk, the yellow in the place of sun streaming down. I did not think I would paint those things; indeed, it looked as if a 5-year-old had painted it on a whim, and then stuck it on the refrigerator to bless mom.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I could look at it no longer, I folded it and pushed it way down in the wastebasket. I cleaned up my mess and put the supplies back in the box. Oh, don\u2019t worry, I\u2019ll try again. But I admit I was hoping for a bit of raw talent to be discovered, so that my efforts looked like something, anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

I got a lesson through this, though not a painting lesson. You see, as I watched the instructional videos, what I saw was an artist putting strokes, dabs, and swishes all over the paper. He knew what he was aiming for, the basics of what it would look like and how to get it there. The painting actually looked like what he intended when he was finished, though it looked like nothing at all while he was working.<\/span><\/p>\n

I do the same when I write. It\u2019s a different sort of artistry, a painting made of words and thoughts. It isn\u2019t raw talent\u2014it\u2019s a gift from God. I start with a blank page, and add broad strokes of foundational themes, dabs of colorful details, and swishes of\u00a0 Scriptural truth. I don\u2019t always know exactly how it will end, but it will look like what God intended when He nudged me to begin.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

God, the Master of Artistry, did the same when He created us. He knew the strokes, dabs and swishes needed to complete us. He does this when He gives us gifts, too; He knows what practice we will need and how to bring forth beauty and fruit from the gifts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Blank pages don\u2019t scare me\u2014not if I can put words on them, anyway. And God puts words on pages, sunsets in skies, dew on morning grasses, and finishing touches on His triumphant creation\u2014us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFather, help us to be good stewards of all that You give to us.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-8ho","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31831,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31830\/revisions\/31831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}