Day 22: The canvas

This post is part of “30 days of Giving Thanks” To read more within this series, click here.

It took Michelangelo four years to complete the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. Some very well known images are preserved on this ceiling, the most notable being the “Creation of Adam.” I have never been to the Sistine chapel, but I imagine that craning the neck just to look at it would make one weary.

Michelangelo was a talented and prolific artist.

There is a canvas, a ceiling, a dome that I love to look at more than any other work of art. It’s painter is the original artist. He invented beauty. His creations have inspired all artists throughout the centuries.

In the early dawn, the canvas is covered with a frosty pale blue, bordered by rose-colored mountain tops. Wispy white strokes streak across the serene scene. Only a few hours before, the very same canvas was drenched in indigo hues with pinprick diamonds glistening in every corner.

As the hours pass, the blue deepens. White wispy strokes are replaced by birds and cotton white puffs. The canvas gently changes as the light source moves. Every day, the Artist has some new view on display. At times the canvas is on fire with golds, reds, oranges and pinks. At other times it is mournfully gray.

This Artist shows His infinite wisdom, His great faithfulness and His magnificent power through His canvas sky. It is one of my greatest delights to look up and see this glorious interplay of color and light and know that my God created it.

How many artists can use so many different elements to create such vast beauty? How many artists have been able to dazzle every single human from creation to present?  What artist has ever flawlessly mastered the balance of form and function on such a grand scale?

I can’t think of one.

The heavens show us how wise, faithful and unchanging our God is. Have you ever heard the expression, “As sure as the dawn” or “as sure as the sun rises”? It means that from creation to the present, there has always been a day and night. There is nothing quite so consistent as the rising of the sun, except for God. It’s a reminder of His faithfulness, His constancy.

I am thankful for God’s vast canvas sky and for what it reveals about Him day after day.

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.

In them he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.

Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

~ Psalm 19.1-6, ESV