Workmanship

“The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,

And he who is wise wins souls.” (Proverbs 11:30)

Unexpected Images

Today I went out to the countryside in search of a particular waterfall that I found online but for some reason the location of the waterfall eluded me and after over an hour of driving I abandoned the search and started driving around the countryside just to see what the evening light would bring. On a random narrow country road, I spotted this hillside and isolated tree just begging to be photographed.

The beauty of landscape photography is that after a while you begin to see things not as they are but as they could be after composing properly, taking the image, and then editing later at home. This takes time to develop and much practice and more failures than successes…. much like life. This image of this random tree on a hillside was exactly this kind of case where the final image is exactly what was imagined when it was being taken in the field.

Tree of Life and Righteousness

For some reason, when I found this image and decided to see what could be done with it in terms of photography, I had this random thought that it reminded me of the biblical tree of life. This got me to searching at home for verses that had to do with the tree of life. This verse in Proverbs came up about “the fruit of the righteous being a tree of life and that he who is wise wins souls” and when combined with the story of how this image was taken brought further thoughts about how God sees us as His own work.

Master Artist

Ephesians 2:10 tells us that“ we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” The word “workmanship” in this verse in the Greek is “poiema” which translates as poetry. In other words, similar to a photographer who can “see” the final image in their mind God in a much more literal and direct way already knows what we will become as we are shaped more and more into His own image. He knows everything about who we will become and what the story, the very poem, of our lives will be even before we are born. He is the true master artist and when we rest in Him and allow Him to work the result is beautiful.

May I encourage you today in an act of faith to stop trying to shape your own life and let the Creator of all things chisel, shape, and polish you into what He already sees you will become!

One more thing… As you relax in the Lord and let Him shape you into His poeima, enjoy the journey and take some photos!

Ken
Psalm 8:3-9