March 8, 2010

"Who Am I?"

Being an art major and a Christian, I have came up with an analogy that talks about God's love, mercy, grace, and sovereignty. Being an artist and especially a character animator means I get to play God in the sense that I am in control of how my art turns out, or how a character will move. I take the role of sovereign ruler, and I can show however much love, mercy, and grace I want to my characters.

1.) When my characters don't move exactly how I want them to, or if things aren't going how I feel they should be going, then I can get frustrated and might stop working on my project for the day. 2.) If a certain character isn't easy to use then I can give up on them and try a different character that is more user friendly. 3.) There are hundreds of characters to choose from when figuring out which one I want to use to animate a scene; the choice is up to me. 4.) I choose the scenery, I choose which characters will be placed in the same scene with each other, and what their situation is in life or in the story.

Let's look at how this relates to Christians. 1.) God instructs us how he wants us to live our lives, but we decide to glorify ourselves instead of God. Instead of God getting frustrated like I do with my characters, God is patient and shows his love and grace. 2.) He doesn't give up on his creation like I tend to do. He is always in control and is always watching over us. Even the people with the hardest of hearts, God can soften. God is persistent with his sheep. 3.) There are billions of people that God could choose to use to carry out his will, and it's a privilege that he would choose to use any of us. It shows God's sovereignty in his choosing, his love by choosing to use sinful people to carry out his plan, and the grace he gives us to speak truth. 4.) God chooses our parents, the people we come in contact with, and the friends that God provides us with. He puts us in what country, state, providence, island, or town he has planned for us. He gives us the talents we have, and the health or lack of health that we have.

Basically, we should be grateful for anything that God gives us, but we get mad at God when things don't go the way we want them to, or if we don't get what we want. Like good things are entitled to us. Who are we to complain to a God that has given us his own Son, who lived a perfect life, died in our place, rose from the dead to conquer sin and death, and made us righteous before a holy, holy, holy God. We have access to God through Jesus Christ now. WOW! That's incredible. But we continue to complain about so many little things in our lives, and forget the greater truth of the Gospel, which never changes.

The point of the analogy is to show how humans respond poorly to meaningless situations in life, and how amazingly God responds to our sinful actions everyday. What a great God we serve. His patience through all my sin continues to amaze me. He continues to call me a son of God and an heir with Christ. Why? What have I done to deserve such grace?... simply nothing.