Inspired Art

I started reading a devotional book written by Amy Carmichael called “I Come Quietly to Meet You”.  I’ve only read the first three chapters and I am already so blessed by what she says.  Amy was a missionary in India her whole life so reading her words and seeing how close she was to God is a great encouragement to me.  She starts out her second chapter saying, “Blessed be the Lord our God, who does – if we speak the honest truth – cause His word to come to us in just this way: like a strong hand reaching out for us to take hold of firmly, and to take hold of us.”  She goes on to talk about trust and how it means ‘to lean on, to place the weight of my confidence upon’.  Then she quotes many verses that talk about leaning on God and how when we lean on God, who is our strength, we are helped.  She ends with a prayer, “… But I want to trust you.  To relax the weight of my fears and anxieties against you.  To rest, to know how fully trustworthy you are.  Help me, Father.  I reach for your hand, feel your firm grip… and I lean my weight against you now.” 

I love that line: “To relax the weight of my fears and anxieties against you.”  There have definitely been a lot of fears and anxieties I have encountered these past two and half weeks but every time I bring them to God I feel like they just fall off me.  When I trust in him, I don’t have anything to be afraid of.  When I lean on him, his firm grip holds me up.

I was also reminded of PUSH physical theater which came to Roberts Wesleyan College every year I was there.  They used to do a one person act where the main guy looked like he was falling but then was caught by a hand in the sky.  His arm was held up and he sort of dangled from this imaginary hand in the sky.  He was held up, not by his own strength, but by the hand he was holding onto above him.  I think the skit was done to You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up) by Josh Groban, which also talks about being held up by God (“Don’t give up/It’s just the weight of the world/When your heart’s heavy/I...I will lift it for you”).   It was always my favorite act they did because it showed how God is holding our hands to hold us up and if we hold tightly to his firm grasp, and trust in him, he will not let us fall.

In a place where I don’t know the culture or the people it is such an encouragement to remember that God firmly holds my hand through it all and helps me in all things.  After reading this chapter I was inspired to make a piece of art that would remind me of this truth every day.