Study of Job 12:14
He destroys, there is no rebuilding,
He confines, there is no release.
Today is Saturday #2 after the garage sale on the adventure to organize the garage. It has been dominated by figuring out what in the kitchen needs to go to the garage. It’s kind of like riding your bike to prepare for a 10k; it just feels wrong. I’ve made progress, but I still have my office and the guest room to do before I make any headway on the garage itself again.
‘Destroys’ was also ‘tears down’ and ‘breaks a thing down’.
‘Confines’ was also ‘shuts in’, ‘imprisons’, and ‘closes’. ‘ Release’ was also ‘open up’ and ‘set free’.
I recently saw a painting I wanted. It was like $39.95, so no big expense. I went back to get it and bought two more while I was at it. As a result, I spent time on ebay looking for other cheap paintings and found many thousands. For fun I have been looking at a few every so often to train my eye on what makes a painting stand out from the crowd. I have decided that a lot of people with no skill have made paintings, and the skill is not in how to represent the view of something, but to make the view emotional.
Someone once gave me a painting that hangs in my office of two horses, and I would call it an impressionist painting as the details are all off in a way that makes sense (and is not just an inability to do better). Next to it I have a painting I bought many years ago that exhibits a similar lack of accurate detail, but the ‘errors’ do not detract from the feel of the scene and are only noticed upon a deeper review (at least by me).
Our lives are built on a mountain of errors and details that are off. God sees our sin and condemns us. Others see our flaws and can see them as fatal flaws, opportunities to serve, or not even know they are flaws. God provides a solution to our condemnation. He destroys sin and confines it to the past. We can live our lives free from the taint of sin if we are seeking the beauty of the whole and willing to overlook the minutiae that matters not to the picture.
Our maturity is a journey of steps. Some are in the right direction and bring progress. Others are in the wrong direction and bring challenges. If we can forgive ourselves for our sins and push forward to glorify God, then we can paint beautiful lives with splashes of color in just the wrong places.
Written 11/6/23, Posted 11/16, Job 267