God - Creator

During the years my husband and I owned a drapery/interior decorating business , I really enjoyed doing display suites. The pleasure of taking a neutral empty shell and having the freedom to create it into something that had life and beauty was a privilege.
After I had done a few , people began to call and say , “Oh , I saw a suite you did, I recognized it right away as something you would do.” At first I took their remarks as a complement , but then I began to think that I was maybe too narrow, too predictable - all my suites must look the same if they were so recognizable as my work.
W hen I was offered the job of decorating a house that would serve as the display home for a large complex , I decided that this time I would really step outside my creative box. I would be so different in style and color and furnishings that no one would recognize it as mine. The Victorian style was really in vogue at that time and because it was my favorite look I tended to go in that direction. This time I went contemporary with an African jungle theme accent and chose colours in the warm golds and browns and greens.
When I was finished I was happy with the results and very confident that no one would recognize it as mine.
It was not more than a day or two after the show suite was open that I got a phone call from a lady I hardly knew. She asked if I had done the show suite – and gave the address of the one I had just completed. I was speechless when she remarked that she had recognized my work and just wanted to complement me on a job well done. I hung up , but any pleasure I might have felt from her praise was totally obliterated by the fact that I had failed miserably in my attempt to be ‘different’.
The next few days I was obsessed with the notion that I must be very unimaginative and restricted in my creativity that I could only accomplish ‘my’ look.
But then, finally, the thought dawned on me that it was perhaps not so much a failure on my part but evidence of something that was peculiar to creative people.
I thought of Robert Bateman and realized that no matter how many times he changed the subject of his painting, there was something that made people recognize it as his. I worked for several years as alterationist for a high end fashion shop that sold clothing lines of well known designers. Even though they came out with new lines , spring and fall, there was always something that made the garments easily identified with their designer.
I came to the conclusion that when we create, we put something of ourselves into the creation . It is impossible not to, and that is what people recognize.

Have you ever wondered why we love to create? Whether it is painting , sewing , decorating our home, setting a table , building something with wood , taking ordinary things and fashioning them into something unique , or putting fresh flowers into a vase.… we all enjoy making something that pleases the eye.
Did you ever stop to think when you stepped back to appraise what your hands had done that you were imitating the God that made you ? We take for granted that we resemble our earthly parents in some characteristic or ability but we don’t often stop to think that we also ‘take after’ our Heavenly Father.
We are made in His image.. that means that we have the capacity to know Him… and to know Him we have to be able to relate to the characteristics of God.. and have the ability to imitate Him. Isn’t it amazing to stop and think that we love to create because it is something God enjoys doing and He gave us the ability so we could share His pleasure?

When we read the Genesis account of God’s creation .. we can identify with God when He looks with pleasure at what He has made and declares “It is good !” Obviously God’s effort was flawless … God is good and therefore His handiwork could not be otherwise, but I think there is a greater reason why He declared it to be good.
God did not intend to simply create a beautiful world that would be a suitable dwelling place for man. God also wanted man to continually have the opportunity to observe His invisible attributes in the visible physical things He created. God declared His finished work ‘good’ because he had accomplished His purpose.
God is the ultimate Creator, perfect in all His ways, and as such it would be impossible for Him to create anything that did not reflect who He was.
Is that not what scripture tells us was His intent??
Romans 1:19, 20 says , “ Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, that they are without excuse…” Anyone, great or small can understand who God is by simply looking at what He has made. God’s creation is a picture so easy to understand that no one will ever be able to stand before God and say , ‘ I had no opportunity to know You ’.

That paints our physical world with an amazing brush - God’s creation – a canvas on which He painted a picture of Himself .