God, Art, Design and Me

An article of two peoples' love of art got me thinking about art, beauty and design recently. I love the art we have at our place. Some is from professional artists, some is fabric I stretched over a canvas, some are pages I've torn from magazines or menus from restaurants I've put in frames.

Even if you wouldn't say you love art, I think the love of creativity, colour, design and beauty is a part of our makeup. We choose clothes we like the look of, plants for their look and fragrance, cars for their colour, interiors, even mags, make food that we enjoy the look and taste of. Music varies but we all enjoy it. Even this morning on the way to work, I went past an earth moving company with excavators all perfectly aligned in their show yard. Why do looks matter, even to sell excavators?

Speaking bluntly, none of these things have any "practical use" but what would our world look like or what experience of life would we have without them?

Though some would argue we are just molecules, or life is just a production line till we get to the end. What explains the depth of human experience, interest and enjoyment? I think our love of art, design and beauty is an indicator that every human being is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).

God is creative. He's made the best, not only functional but aesthetically diverse and beautiful things. We couldn't beat the world and universe he's created if we tried. He could have made the world purely practical. Food could have been bland, but God made so much diversity and amazing tastes. Imagine if every animal, bird, human, gust of wind sounded the same? But he gave each a distinct sound. He could have made just one animal, one landscape, one type of human... even one sunset, but the variations in what he has made is beyond our counting.

If the Bible's account is right we bear the image of this God and this God want's us to know him. Search the City Bible Forum webpage for your city to investigate more how you can get to know this God better.