Art and God

          For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you. (Psalm 139:13-18)

          The first thought that comes to mind is that David was a poet. He composed songs, and in poetry and music, figurative speech is often used. He probably knew that babies aren’t formed in the depths of the earth, except in the sense that God formed man from the earth.

          But that’s not the point of this passage. It’s not about science, it’s about relationship. Have you ever knitted? It’s been decades, but I know it’s tedious, repetitive, and takes a lot of time and attention. I haven’t woven – I’d like to – but I read a novel about weavers, and a tapestry involved the work of at least six people and several months labor. We know it takes an average of 40 weeks for a baby to develop from conception to birth. Now, here’s one I know about! It took me over four years to take Earth Fire from idea to book sitting on my shelf, and Soul Fire at least three years. Writing is just as involved as a tapestry and even after it’s initially written, a writer goes over it, editing it. I just spent the month of April going through my work in progress four times fixing errors, smoothing rough spots, patching plot holes…. It’s tedious, repetitive, and takes a lot of time and attention.

          This is the sort of attention with which David credits God. In fact, he takes it even further. All David’s days were written in God’s book before David even saw the light of day. Again, going back to the work it takes to be an author. One of the challenges of writing is to bring together a whole integrated story. One of the problems I’ve faced as I start into the third book of a trilogy is the fact that while the story is about one character, there are other characters whose story is interwoven with hers. Some have wandered off into their own lives. Others, especially a few, I feel the need to bring their story to a satisfying end, and I only have one book left in which to do so!

God has a far more challenging story, an epic saga to put all the other epic sagas to shame. Its hero is Jesus Christ, but there are billions of characters who play a tiny role. For each of them, He writes a mini-saga, weaving them into the lives of a few of the billions of others, and all of them in and out through the story of Jesus.

          This is one of the great blessings of being a writer, a poet, an artist, or even a crafter. You have the chance to do in a tiny way what God does in a universal way, and thereby catch the tiniest glimpses of how awesome God is.