The Great Artist
Once, when I was in high school, I went up to Salem, Oregon to visit my brother. He and I and a friend of his hiked Silver Falls in the foothills on the eastern side of the valley. It was a moody fall day with rain drizzling through the brooding pines as we followed the path along Silver Creek. We came to a dark pool under one of the smaller falls and jumped from rock to rock to its center. The creek plummeted through a cleft in the channel above us and fled, clear and white, around the slick boulders on which we stood. Spray from the waterfall mingled with the rain and soaked our hair and our clothes. We were in awe on the very edge of a force that could crush us, and Matt’s friend said, “God is the great artist.”
I’ve never forgotten that statement because it was both true and yet not true enough. It is true that God is the great artist. In terms of scope, detail, beauty, and limitless imagination, no artist will ever match what God has made. But life in urban America creates a sense of remove that allows us to view God’s artistic achievement the same way we would view, say, Caravaggio: calmly in a sterile museum.
We too easily forget that God’s creation is not a painting on a wall. It’s not even enough to say that the painting is all around us. It’s more accurate to say that we are in the painting, miniscule human beings in an unfathomable landscape. To say God’s creation is necessary to sustain life is almost sinfully understated. Without the air, water, and food that our earthly home provides, life would not even be possible.
This is why creation expresses many aspects of God’s character. Breathing expresses his gift of life. Mountains express his grandeur. Rain expresses his care. The variety of plants and animals for food express his goodness. Creation also expresses God’s holiness and power.
It is by his might that we are in his great work, and his mighty hand sustains us. He provides everything we need for life and gives us the strength and ability to interact with his creation, to carefully and compassionately steward it for our health and nourishment.
Yet anyone who has been hurt by nature knows never to treat it flippantly. God is not capricious as nature is, but like that waterfall I stood in front of many years ago, he is powerful beyond our reckoning. He is fearful. The person who interacts with God’s wild creation learns to treat it with care and respect. Just so, we who call ourselves children of God do well to walk with our mighty creator in humility.
