When I originally finished my degree and earned my teaching license, I assumed I would be teaching nothing but ESL as long as I worked in Taiwan. However, this year my school started making big plans to become a bilingual school, where the American teachers will be co-teaching anything from math to art with a Taiwanese teacher. Last semester I started co-teaching art for the first time.
All of the memories of the art class I had at a homeschool co-op when I was a teenager resurfaced. At that time, I loved to create things. I just didn’t want to create what my art teacher wanted me to create. Who wants to draw a bunch of fruit when you could be sewing doll clothes at home? Who wants to draw a color wheel when you could be doing anything else? But I found out that I actually love art–I love the act of creating. I love being an art teacher where I’m allowed to do the two things I love the most: plan and create.
The problem is, I often think very poorly of myself, especially about planning. I call myself “stupid” for writing everything down, or a “worrier” for planning ahead. In the Christian life, it’s pretty common for us to say the words “I’m worthless” because we’re often thinking about what our role is in gaining salvation. Sometimes that affects the way we look at every personality trait of ours, even the good ones.
How do we reorient our lives to believe that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”? That He did nothing wrong when He created us with our unique personalities? The truth is, God made us to look like Himself with His traits. A very familiar verse which we all memorized at VOICE comes to mind: “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” (Ephesians 2:10, NLT) I used a different translation than what we memorized because of the word “masterpiece.” Just the word masterpiece evokes a flood of emotions that is sometimes present when we look at a famous piece of art or hear a famous piece of music. When God made us, He took time. He chose specific materials, mixed the perfect colors, and then intricately designed every detail of our being. Not only that but because of creating us anew in Christ we leave off the title “worthless”. We get a new title “worthwhile”.
I plan because I love to plan, because God loves to plan. When He created the world it was a part of this huge grand plan that each of us take part in every day. When I’m planning and creating I’m taking part in what God has been doing from the beginning and doing exactly what He created me to do.
