ARTIST NOTES

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​Week 13        5/22/2016

Title of drawing:  "With or Without God" (Joshua 3 and 6)

Artist thoughts:
God always does the heavy lifting. He asks us to do something that requires trust and we get to share in the blessing of his good and perfect will. However, God always does the majority, the part we could admittedly never imagine, organize, orchestrate or design and implement. That is the pattern I've noticed from Eden through Jericho thus far.

God told Joshua to instruct the Israelites to march around Jericho in a very specific way over 7 days. The Israelites obeyed and on the seventh day the walls of Jericho fell. God invites us to join him in his plans but it requires a decision on our part. Will we trust him, do as he states and be blessed, or distrust, think we can do it better our own way and rebel. Either way God's plan prevails with blessing or discomfort as a consequence of our own trust and obedience or mistrust, doubt, and fear.

In hindsight of God's character and goodness there were visual reminders put into place to help us trust him. Songs are written, festivals are celebrated, memorials or altars are built and stories are shared. The song of Moses, Passover, and Joshua's twelve stones from the Jordan River are good examples.

I hope today's drawing can be a sort of reminder. The transition from Moses to Joshua came with discomfort. Rather than entering the promised land the Israelites wondered in the desert for 40 years due to a lack of trust in God's commands. Of the 12 scouts sent out by Moses to observe the promised land, Joshua and Caleb were the only two willing to trust and obey God's command to overtake the land. All 12 observed the same land and bore evidence that the land was fruitful and full of milk and honey. Two were confident and expressed their trust in God but ten were fearful and, with their influence, would incite fear and rebellion against the Lord's command. I drew twelve glasses of water for this morning to illustrate our own potential to see the same thing differently. Two of these glasses are half-full the other ten are half empty. Which is which? I hope it can serve as a visual reminder of the decision we get to make everyday: trust and obey a God offering love and rescue from sin in a messed up world or devise our own way of living life.

View the time lapse video HERE.
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​Listen to the sermon HERE.