Anyone who knows me personally or has read a lot of my blog posts will know that I absolutely adore my iPad
(I wish they would pay me for saying that - I would be rich by now).
Also my family will know that I have far too many apps on my iPad (mostly free ones - I only get paid ones if I cannot find a free one which will do the job).
Well one of the apps I had downloaded one time ages ago was one to have a little fun with photos. You loaded your photo into the app and then you could get a black and white sketch of a funny kind of outline of the photo.
I played with it once some time in 2012 and just used two photos that I found; quickly one of each of our boys many years ago when they were young. My husband had scanned some negatives and I had those pictures on the ipad so they were handy to use.
(I can hear our daughter now saying "what about one of me?"
- she always claims that being the third child was so unfair because we didn't take as many photographs of her as a baby as we did of the boys.)
These are the results of those two experiments
In fact it took me quite a while to find them today.
Have you ever had a picture just pop into your mind?
Well you can probably imagine my surprise when suddenly these two pictures popped into my mind during a prayer meeting at church a few weeks ago. I saw them clearly in my mind's eye and thought this was very strange.
Then God impressed a phrase on me
"I do not distort things I make them more beautiful"
Two of the words in that sentence really stood out to me.
"Distorted" and "more"
It was good enough, I felt, that God was telling me or reminding me that He does not distort things - that is the work of the devil.
And it was even better that He was reminding me that He makes things beautiful.
But the thing I felt that was being stressed was the fact that He makes things MORE beautiful.
Perhaps we need to take heed of Psalm 90:17
Now this only shows the first part of the verse but I think it is important that we also consider the next part
And establish the work of our hands for us;
Yes, establish the work of our hands.
God is not making us beautiful so that we can bask in our beauty, He is making us beautiful so that we can work for Him.
With the beauty of God upon us we will be more like Him in all ways filling us with His Holy Spirit and bringing forth the Fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Our minds, attitudes and feelings will be more aligned to God's and ultimately this will help us to reach others for Him
So can we sit back and just think for a little while today about how we as children of God are not distorted but are made more beautiful by God?
I'm thankful to have a God who can make things MORE beautiful.
Do you want to thank God that He makes us more beautiful than we can imagine?
I do.
Yes, we are made more beautiful by God. It is the enemy who wants us to see a distorted picture of ourselves. Grateful that we can ignore that image and focus on who we are in Christ. Thanks for linking up to Testimony Tueday!
ReplyDeleteThanks for dropping in Holly. Yes the enemy will always want to distract us by any means at all.
DeleteA beautiful message Sandra! It always seems easier to believe the devil than God, but I still haven't figured out
ReplyDeletewhy... :(
Thanks for the reminder.
Deb :)
Hi Deb glad you dropped by, and unfortunately what you say is too true.
DeleteSandra,
ReplyDeleteThis is very encouraging...Giving thanks with you for how God does makes us more beautiful in Christ ...Thanks for the reminder :)
Hi Dolly thanks for dropping and encouraging me.
DeleteYour fun pictures made me smile, but your boys probably don't like you showing them. LOL. Yes, God does make us 'MORE' beautiful and does not distort his blessings. Thank you for sharing your lovely post with us here at “Tell Me a Story.” http://letmetelluastory.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteSuch a lovely post! And also a great reminder...
ReplyDeleteHi Cristina, We do need reminders don't we.
DeleteGreat analogy, Sandra (as usual.) Love the parallel you have drawn and praise God that He makes things more beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement Sharita
DeletePS: Thanks for sharing your thoughts over at #EverydayJesus. Blessings to you, sister!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful post!
ReplyDeleteThank you very much, I'm glad you dropped in.
DeleteA great reminder Sandra! And....I love the photos; too funny:) Dropping by from a little Coffee for your Heart.
ReplyDeleteSo glad He doesn't as I distort enough. What an encouragement-more beautiful :)
ReplyDeleteWhat delightful distortion!
ReplyDeleteThese are so neat!
Thanks for sharing for the letter D.
A+
Thanks Sandra for this encouraging post. Yes, God makes everything more beautiful. I loved your example of the app that sketched your sons' pictures.
ReplyDeleteThank you Judith
DeleteAn encouraging word, Sandra! We can be thakful that God takes what is broken, distorted and soiled in our lives and makes something beautiful out of it. Thank you for this great reminder. :) x
ReplyDeleteYes very thankful Joy
DeleteLove this one Sandra... echoes a similar thought I've had this week. So good to hear it here. Thank you for sharing with the Cozy Reading Spot.
ReplyDeleteMarissa
http://forfunreadinglist.blogspot.com
I love this! Even when we think we have distorted or even ruined things, but God is in the business of restoring to it all to beautiful newness. Thank you for this well-written, encouraging message. Yes! "Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us!" Amen!
ReplyDeleteThanks Karen, we all need encouragement.
Delete