Abraham Lincoln

A few years ago, I visited the Norman Rockwell museum in Massachusetts with my family while on vacation. It was amazing to see many paintings and illustrations on display that I’d seen in the Saturday Evening Post and other publications throughout my life.

My favorite Rockwell painting is Norman Rockwell’s own self-portrait. It’s anything but serious. When we visited his studio, I was happy to see the same helmet hanging on the top of his easel that appears in his portrait. Rockwell bought the helmet in 1923 from an antiques dealer in Paris France. The dealer said it was a military relic. As it turns out, it was a modern French fireman’s helmet. He kept it close by to remind himself of his own foolishness.

Many other famous artists, including the likes of Durer, Rembrandt, Picasso, Van Gogh, and Dali painted self-portraits. If you were to do your own self-portrait, how would you do it? How do you see yourself? Serious? Comical? Winner? Loser? Hero? Clown?

At Walt Disney World, you can buy a parody of Rockwell’s self-portrait. It features Mickey Mouse seated in front of the easel, paint brush in hand. In this version, when Mickey looks at himself, he sees his creator, Walt Disney. I wonder, how do you think God sees you? Do you see you the way God does?

Ephesians 2:10 says,

 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (ESV)

You are God’s workmanship. That’s right, God thinks you are a real piece of work! In Greek, the word “workmanship” is poiema, from which we get the word, poem. You are God’s poem. Don’t think about something wimpy. Think about Homer’s Odyssey, or Beowulf who slayed the monster Grendel. Powerful poetry. That’s you. Regardless of how you see yourself or how you feel about yourself, when God looks at you he sees an amazing work of art.

That word, Poiema, is only used in one other place in the New Testament. That’s in Romans 1:20.

 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So, they have no excuse for not knowing God. (NLT)

Whenever God paints, He paints a self-portrait. That’s the incredible scenery you enjoy when you are gardening, or hunting, or fishing, or hiking, or taking a walk. Even the powerful storm is part of how He is revealing Himself. And you are also one of the things He created.

You are a part of God revealing Himself, right here, right now, just as you are, before you take one step. And being transformed in Christ, you are gifted and equipped to reach the whole world. You are God’s powerful poem, part of His self-portrait, created to know Him and reflect Him.

The New Testament word for heart is kardia, from which we get cardiac and cardiology, words with which I am sadly too familiar. According to the Bible Study Tools’ Bible Dictionary, between the New Testament word, kardia and the Old Testament word, lebab, “heart” occurs more than 1,000 times in the Bible. That makes it the most human-related word in scripture. That also means that matters of the heart are important to God.  A Stanford University article on A History of the Heart1 tells us that in the fourth century B.C., the Greek philosopher Aristotle thought that the heart was the seat of intelligence. In later centuries, scientific understanding of the heart and its role in blood circulation were combined with cultural understanding that made it the “seat of emotions”. As far back as the ancient Egyptians, the heart was understood in this way. The Bible reflects all of this imagery in its many appeals to the heart.

Today, we understand that our intelligence and emotions are actually seated somewhere within our brain, yet we still use the image of the heart to talk about feelings. You might be surprised to know that the word kardia, for heart in the New Testament is never once used to refer to that big muscle beating in your chest. It’s always used to refer to the center of your spiritual life. When you are told to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…” (Mark 12:30) you are not being told to relate your circulation pump to your Lord. Instead, you are commanded to give Him all of your love, all of your emotions, and all of your spiritual being (including your brain) without holding back. Everything. Every little bit.

In February, when we celebrate love through Saint Valentine’s Day, we talk a lot about our feelings for one another, particularly our feelings toward a special someone in our life whom we care about more than any other. Revelation 2:4 talks about our love of Jesus in this way. John charges the Ephesians with having lost their “first love” or the “love you had at first”. The language   suggests not only that they had a greater love for Jesus when they first knew Him but also that the love for our Lord is/should be their first priority.

As we approach the celebration of Saint Valentine, let it remind us of our love of Christ. Let it remind us that our love should burn as passionately now as it did when we first loved Him and that our love should hold nothing back, taking first place in our lives. Love our sweetheart? You bet! Love our Lord? Even more!

Happy Valentine’s!

When the woman got to the part of the story where the young husband and wife reveal that they had sold their most prized possessions, the bride her beautiful long hair and the groom his beautiful pocket watch, the young woman began to cry as she read. In fact, she started to cry before she got there, merely anticipating what was to come.

In the story, the wife’s gift to her husband had been a platinum watch chain to go with his beautiful watch and the husband’s gift to the wife had been a set of tortoise shell combs for her hair. Each had made great sacrifice to give a gift to the other.

I thought that the young woman would not be able to finish reading the story. Twice, she stopped and sobbed but then continued on. I looked around the room at the faces of the others listening and saw they were as gripped by what was happening as I was.

Somehow the story, told through tears, highlighted the love and the sacrifice of the gifts of the husband and wife in the tale. It was like hearing the story for the first time again.

When the last words were read, there was a hush. It was a holy moment. The young woman was embarrassed by her tears but we were deeply moved. It was as though God were reminding us of His sacrifice saying, “See? These gifts remind you of my sacrificial gift for you.

In fact, God gave us gifts more than once. First, He gave His only Son to a world pregnant with anticipation. The tears began before the revelation of His gift. Humans weeping for God to send a savior and God weeping for humanity’s fallen and separated existence; yearning for reconciliation.

Thirty-three years after Jesus birth, the Father gave the same gift of His Son again, in sacrifice. And with that gift came yet another gift, the gift of eternal life as the Father raised His Son, Jesus, from the dead.

The young woman’s reading of the story, anointed by tears, was a gift that brought to mind even greater gifts. Another grand irony, and a great joy too, is the young woman was blissfully unaware of the gift she’d given us.

Once, while visiting in a hospital ward, I met a woman who had enjoyed an Atlantic ocean-crossing aboard the Queen Mary. She and her sister had enjoyed the luxurious surroundings and she shared quite a bit about that voyage. I was fascinated to hear firsthand about this ship that was an important piece of history from someone who had actually sailed aboard her.

Built in Scotland in 1930, she was christened in 1931 by Queen Mary herself, who delighted the public by giving the ship her name. The ship, larger than the Titanic, was 1,019 feet long, had 12 decks and carried 1,957 passengers with a crew of 1,174. She was converted into a troop carrier during WWII and transported more than 800,000 soldiers.

I had the privilege of exploring her decks twice while she was docked at Long Beach, California as a kind of floating museum. One fact I remember well from a tour I took had to do with her beautiful smokestacks. When the ship was sold in 1967, the famous Cunard red funnels were removed to be replaced. As the stacks were lowered onto the docks, they collapsed. The stacks had been painted and repainted so many times that the paint was all that was left of the original funnels. Over 1,000 voyages and the salt water had rusted the insides until no metal remained. They looked great on the outside but there was nothing on the inside but rust and rot.

In Christian life, it’s easy to be “royalty on the outside” while remaining inwardly unchanged. To quote one of my Scottish grandmother’s expressions, we’re pretty good at “putting on the dog” or dressing up like something we’re not. It’s easy to paste on a smile and adopt an attitude that makes people around us feel like we have it all together while on the inside there is turmoil or sin eating away at us. Coming to Jesus, fully, unconditionally, can restore God’s original intention for us. Submitting to Him and allowing Jesus to fill every place in our lives not only cleanses us of sin but makes us fully useful as servants of God.

What the outside looks like isn’t nearly as important as what is on the inside. We pray that God will fully transform us from rust and rot to something beautiful.

“What counts is whether we have been transformed into a new creation.” Galatians 6:15b NLT

Photo by Martin H. MacDonald

My heart pounded. The altimeter read 15,000 feet. We could barely move with 180 in full gear packed into the cargo hold of a 727 jet. The green light flashed and our 10 man team moved to the exit. I went headfirst down the stairs and was taken by the relative wind under the tail, like being shot out of a cannon! The 170 miles-per-hour force of it was disorienting. When I’d slowed to terminal velocity and spotted my teammates it was time for parachutes. Sadly, we did not join together in a star formation; velocity had scattered us like puzzle pieces across the blue sky.

Our family and church lives can be like that. We intend to form something beautiful in a partnership with God that brings Him glory. But our tension-filled, high velocity lives scatter us, pull us away from the worship of God and separate us from one another. We are distracted by scores of little gods forcing their way into our lives. Busyness, stress, and financial pressure are disorienting and fracturing. Jesus, family, and community take a back seat to the tyranny of the urgent. Our relationships need mending, especially the one with God.

Jesus rebukes Satan in Matthew 4:10 saying, “For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’ Let’s banish the other gods and reform our connection with the one God of the universe. He’ll help us re-form the rest.

Lord God, help me today to return godship to you.