Comfort amidst the dust

Psalm 103:13-14

As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.
For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust.

A while back I was lying in bed trying to sleep and I started thinking about the creation account of human kind (recently I "re" began my Bible read through in Genesis and it has been on my mind and heart). I was captivated by the picture of God reaching into the dirt and molding a sculpture from the earths clay... and then breathing His life into it. In fact, as I continued to think, it slowly turned into a poem (which I wrote about a while back).

When I was in High School I took art for a couple of years and clay was one of my favorite things to work with - so much so that I actually continued to do a bit of sculpting in college. It is a great medium (artistic NOT spirit "communicator") because it feels like you are a kid again messing around in the mud. By the end of a piece you usually have it all over your hands, arms and face. As the clay dries it slowly turns to dust and, inevitably, that dust finds itself all over every other part of your body, desk, room, house...

Clay is messy...
a lot like us.

This week I heard someone quote Psalm 103 and I was struck again with the beauty and power of the creation picture. But, as you read deeper, the Psalm says more than that... it seems to suggest that their can be peace and comfort found in the knowledge of who God is and who we are.

As a society, we seem so bent on becoming
powerful,
strong,
tough...
not very dust like...
yet dust we are.

It is amazing to me... God, the very Lord of lords, the Master sculptor of existence, reaches down into the dirt and forms a fragile clay man and then (in what is one of the most dramatic moments in history) pulls the clay close, like a Father with His child, and breaths the breath of LIFE into its earthen soul...

AND WHOOSH... life is!

And He looks upon His earthen man with an eternal eye and sees Himself nailed to a wooden tree (that He planted)... and has compassion... because He knows we are dust AND He loves us anyways.