Randy Suits

An Artist at His Easel

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Eve, My work of art wife

Just outside of Simonstown, South Africa, we happened upon a picnic area with guineas walking about. A middle aged artist was sitting at his easel painting a picturesque cottage nestled amidst the coastal mountains, in a windy cove with waves breaking over the rocky beach. Gunieas are timid fowl but one can be seen walking within three feet of the painter, intent upon his canvas and the pictoral scene before him. I photographed the artist at work and proceded with my morning walk in the perpetual Antarctic wind known to the southern coasts of South Africa. On the warmest morning in the midst of summer, stiff breezes from the south pole refresh all who walk, jog or cycle along the coast. These strong winds are typical of Capetown as one of the most unique attributes of the local environment. We look to artists to capture in an oil painting the beauty of the mind of God, who in eternity past envisioned the very sights that every generation has viewed and experienced. As marvelous as a good work of oil on canvas can be, it can never capture the full measure of magnificience and beauty of the handiwork of Creator God in the universe, world and environment He prepared for man. He did all this for Adam, his wife Eve and all their descendants. First He created an environment to support physical life. Then He planted a garden (controlled environment)to nourish, satisfy and please the man he formed and breathed into him the breath of life. This breath of life was more than inhaling and exhaling. It imparted a quickening thinking spirit, the very essence of God in love, which moved about in a canopy of flesh bringing instantaneous eternal knowledge from the mind of God necessary to conform, adapt and manipulate that portion of creation assigned to man. To think creatively is to breath in from the mind of God, the source of all knowledge. Nothing can be discovered that was not already conceived, planned and formulated in the mind of Almighty God. For men breathe in an idea from the mind of God and breathe out a discovery or invention for God, men and all of creation to share. The written Word of God, the Bible, is derived from inspiration, (note that spirit is the root of this word) which is acquiring knowledge and understanding from knowing God (the root of knowledge is to know) and perceiving his mind through prayer, meditation, study and applying the resultant mind and heart of God to the life we live, i.e. manifesting the works of God among men and angels. (The apostle Paul said that ‘some have entertained angels unawares’ HEB 13:2.) An artist at his easle paints an inspired version of a scene and applies it to canvas for he breathes in from the vision of God and reveals the image from the heart of God.

Let’s paint our vision of life to the glory of God, Kochany