Dominionfeatured

As I struggled through the painting process this week, God, in His graciousness, taught me a lesson about His dominion.  It was a humbling lesson, as are most of the lessons that God gently teaches me!

According to Merriam-Webster dominion means, “supreme authority, sovereignty, absolute ownership.”  Psalm 24:1 says, ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.”  Further, Psalm 145:13 tells me that God’s kingdom is, “…. An everlasting kingdom, and Your dominion endures through all generations. The Lord is trustworthy in all He promises and faithful in all He does.” 

When I apply the dictionary definition to the words in these two Psalms, the truth that smacks me in the face is that He is in charge of it all, all things big and small down to the tiniest detail.  A very important aspect of this truth is that I am not in charge of any of it!  Now this is not a new concept to me at all (or probably to you!).  What I became acutely aware of this week, is how often I fail to live out God’s dominion in my life.  I give lip service to God’s ownership of me and everything in my life, but I try to live as if I was in charge.

God is using my painting process to highlight this in my life.  Let me share, how my process typically goes so that you can see how easily I get off track!   

Before I start a painting, I typically pray telling God that I want this painting to honor and glorify Him and seek His guidance.  Once I start to paint, however, my own desires for the painting start to take over.  I may have seen a beautiful work and I decide I want to try to do something similar.  Or I have a theme or a technique that I’d like to incorporate. My prayer hasn’t touched my behavior!  Down deep in my heart, I still want to do what I want to do and I’m not willing to submit to His dominion over His painting.

The outcome is generally pretty ugly.  I’m not pleased with the result and start trying to fix it – and another ugly layer of paint goes on.  Sometimes this goes on for quite some time!  Finally, when I am totally frustrated and ready to give up, I remember that He is the painter, not me.  When I finally go to Him and say, “I give up control of this, I want this painting to be whatever You want it to be”; that is when in a mysterious way He begins to lead me out of the ugliness.  He proves faithful and trustworthy as promised in Psalm 145:13. The cool thing is that when I submit my will to His, God somehow uses all those ugly paint layers to somehow enhance the final outcome.  Those layers add depth and character to the painting.

Now I wish I could say that painting was the only area in my life where I struggle with submitting my will to His!  Unfortunately, that is not the case.    But just as He does with my paintings, His grace and love can take my (any your!) mistakes and the wanderings of our hearts and transform our lives into works of art that demonstrate His everlasting dominion and faithfulness.  Isaiah 61: 3 tells us how He longs, “to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.”   His dominion is what is best for us!

I think that Jesus really empathizes with our struggles to embrace God’s dominion over our lives.  In Matthew 26 as Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, He asked God to not put Him through the suffering He was going to endure on the cross.  He prayed this prayer three times, which tells me that submitting to God’s dominion was agonizing for Him.  However, three times He submitted His will to His Father’s.  He is our example and understands completely  the difficulty of our struggle to submit to God’s dominion.

Lord, by the power of your Spirit, help us all to embrace your dominion rather than resist it![jetpack_subscription_form]