Designed By God

There is a T.V. show on the HGTV channel called “Divine Design,” and it showcases the impressive talents of Candice Olson, the star and host of the show. Every time I see or hear “Divine Design,” I don’t think of Candice Olson. I think of God.

When I was a teenage in youth choir, we sang “MASTER DESIGNER,” a song by Kurt Kaiser:

Cotton candy clouds, so fluffy and white,
Who put you there in a sky of deep blue?
Or do you just happen to float along,
Pretty and white in a sky so blue, so blue, sky so blue?

Tall mountain, deep valley, fast river, cool stream,
Show grandeur and majesty in some grand scheme
All of these wonders that we behold,
Are only a part – it cannot be told, be told, cannot be told.

Master Designer, Whoever You are,
All of this beauty both near and afar
Can’t just have happened, the odds are too great,
There must be a plan, we’re not left to fate, to fate, not left to fate.

All of this beauty is far too convincing
Master Designer, Your word must be true,
Of all Your creations man is the dearest
Help me to simply believe now in You, in you,
Believe in You.

O.K., the song is dated (after all, it was the 70’s), but I’ve long been fascinated by this notion of God as the master designer. It is a notion born out in the scriptures, as we read in our texts for today.

Psalm 19 – “The heavens tell of the glory of God – and proclaim the wonder of God’s handiwork.” I looked up handiwork – it means the heavens are handmade by God. God is the master designer and the master craftsman.

We see it in Noah’s Ark. God said to Noah, “…make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.”

God the Architect, giving Noah the detailed blueprints for building a new kind of building; one that would float and last through the worst storm in human history.

Made me think of Joe Silva. Joe is a master carpenter. He can see the things he wants to build in his mind, and he doesn’t even need to write it down. His latest edifice is an outdoor kitchen in his backyard. We stood there, on the lawn, and he described it in detail to me. “The oven will be here, with a shelf, and there will be a place here for the grill. I’ll build a window here, for access to the pool. There will be vent here, and I’ll use clay tiles for the roof. It will slant from here up to there. And there will be stairs here for access to my workshop and the basement.”

It was easy to imagine what it would look like because he described it so well. When I returned, it was done – just the way he described. I think God is a master carpenter like Joe Silva.

Consider also the Ark of the Covenant. “Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you. Have them make a chest of acacia wood—two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high. Overlay it with pure gold, both inside and out, and make a gold molding around it. Cast four gold rings for it and fasten them to its four feet, with two rings on one side and two rings on the other. Then make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. Insert the poles into the rings on the sides of the chest to carry it. The poles are to remain in the rings of this ark; they are not to be removed. Then put in the ark the Testimony, which I will give you…
See that you make them according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”

God gave them the pattern, i.e., the blueprint, and told them to follow it exactly. And they did. That’s how the Ark of the Covenant was created.

God also designed the Temple. And so the Bible is clearly revealing to us that God is the Divine Designer.

Now listen to this verse from Ephesians, chapter 2, verse 10:

“We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it.”

We hear about God the Creator, and God the Father all the time, but not so much about God the Artist. I think there’s a lot of value in contemplating God as The Artist who puts an artist’s thought, care, and work into creating works of art called Me, You, and Us. The creative energy, attention to detail, and raw work that God puts into creating us is pretty amazing. This reminds me of one of my favorite poems – “The Creation,” by James Weldon Johnson. It ends with God creating humanity:

Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled Him down;
And there the great God Almighty,
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand —
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till He shaped it in His own image;

Then into it He blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen. Amen.

We are God’s workmanship. God’s handiwork. The pinnacle of God’s creation.

My sister, “Snookie,” is a master gardener. Snookie’s office is filled with handmade drawings of people’s yards and development’s layouts, with every plant and tree carefully thought out based on the amount of sun, whether it is indigenous, how big it will get, how much water and care it needs, and so forth. And you can get in the car and take a tour of the gardens and landscapes she has designed and handcrafted. Right down to the butterfly garden, where hundreds come every year during the migration of the monarchs. It is breathtaking.

I want us to be master designers of the new lives that we are called to live because of the risen Christ. And I want us to be master designers of the church God has planned for greater Birmingham. We are co-creators with Christ in designing and building the kinds of lives and communities that accurately exemplify God’s Kingdom intentions.

God is the Architect; God is the artist. God is the playwright. Each of us has a role in God’s script, and if we do our part, the play will change the world. And at the curtain call, God deserves the standing ovation.

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