God . . . the Invisible Overlay

I read My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers’ classic daily devotional, every morning (well almost) and have for the past 15 years. But since the end of this May I’ve been making a study of the reading and looking deep into the scriptures seeking more of whatever the Lord want to say through Chambers’ wisdom. The results have been truly awesome . . . sometimes joyful, often tearful but helpful, healing and revealing in the deepest parts of my hidden self, bringing to light those things I either refused to face, or didn’t know were there. Well, this morning was no different except that I feel compelled to share what I saw.

As an *artist, (all aspects of my creativity) I’ve struggled with my talent, the expression of it, corralling it, honing it and most of all, letting God use it. Most recently, I’ve had a very difficult time with my ego and no amount of reasoning, squelching, ignoring or trying to hand it off to the Lord has helped. It’s so full of itself . . . and I was beginning to feel the only way to rid myself of it was to stop creating. As if THAT would really fix the problem . . .

Well, after several days of beating myself up, the Lord finally stepped in. Probably because I’d given up hope and decided to just “let go and let God,” to use a hackneyed phrase albeit a true one. Today’s reading was focused mostly on prayer and I relished the insights from the Holy Spirit on praying (a future blog topic). But towards the end, Chambers turns to the subject of our abilities. He says this:

“Our ordinary abilities will never worship God unless they are transformed by the indwelling Son of God.“ **

His words struck me like a lightening bolt and illuminated a lie buried deep within my ego that had been lurking there forever. For some reason, I had always believed that I had to give up all of my own abilities and totally use God’s abilities to serve Him. Now there is truth in that but not the whole truth. Each of us has a unique combination of abilities designed specifically for us by God for His purpose.* They are natural, yes, but not evil or bad or even useless. Now when I look at Chambers’ statement the word worship stick out. I had never thought about my abilities worshiping God. And when I read the word transformed I began to get the picture. That’s when the lightening bolt hit. CRACK!

I have talent. I have ability. I am gifted. But if it remains only I then it’s wasted.

God IS talent. God IS ability. God IS . . . And He desires to use me. So this is what He showed me. My raw talent is the foundation for His overlaying enhancement. Being a film editor (and writer) I work with film clips. I pull a shot/clip onto the editing timeline and then trim, clip, enhance and sometimes overlay the clip with another one that enhances the original with special effects etc. God showed me that my raw talent is the underlying clip and He is the overlay. He takes what I have and enhances it until it shines like a diamond. He transforms my ability into a masterpiece. Moreover, all of this is done behind the scenes and the audience is clueless. All they see is a beautiful work of art. THAT’S what it’s all about. Letting God do what only He can do with what He's given to only me.

And as for the worship aspect, instead of worshiping God over my talent, I need to worship God in my talent by allowing Him to use it, overlay it with His marvelous supernatural ability and present it to the world for His purpose and glory. It’s not that I have to strip myself of my abilities for then He’d have nothing to work with . . . rather like the black space under a title in the opening credits. Without allowing Him to use us, it’s just the Title and though that can be beautiful, it’s much more interesting with a clip running underneath. And on the other end of the spectrum, trying to use my talent without His enhancement is like watching paint dry on a wall.

It takes both God and me to make a movie . . .or a book . . . or a painting or a ___________________ (you fill in the blank for yourself.) Jesus said in John 15:5, "I am the vine and you are the branches . . . apart from Me you can do nothing. Watchman Nee says of this verse, "It's not that we can do nothing, but whatever we do is nothing." I love that.



*“For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. “(Eph. 2:10)


** August 9, My Utmost For His Highest, Oswald Chambers; Discovery House, 1992