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Expressions

I find myself drawn more and more to the expression.
There’s something so moving about taking in the communication of someone else’s experience or in expressing your own.
Words.  Pictures.  Stories.  Paintings.  Music.  Beauty.

What else can we expect as creations of a undeniably communicative God?
The one who penned His words for us, made unending images of creativity, wrote a story that spans all time, made the entire universe His canvas, is continually praised with song, and in whom are culminated all things beautiful. 

And so we live forth His image and express here on this earth.

The more you interact with these expressions, though, the more you begin to see that what really moves is not the penned letters or the captured images or the compiled sounds, but the heart of the communicator.  
It’s in the expression of their experience that you begin to share their joy, to feel their pain, to enter into their journey.  It’s why we’re so drawn to creative expression, because we deeply desire to know and be known.  If we can make someone feel the way we feel or see from our perspective for just a moment, we can experience connection with them.  We can enter into their story and become a part of something bigger than ourselves.

It’s why the man who buys my coffee brewer wants to know its history, because he “just likes stories”.  He joins with other lives that have lived their stories alongside a common object.
It’s why the written letters mean so much to the girl, because they’re expressions of a heart she wants to live a life with.
It’s why the newly written lyrics must be shared, because they connect others to what your soul has experienced most deeply.

The objects void of their ability to connect two people become meaningless:
A solitary cup of coffee.
Sheets of paper with empty promises.
Notes and words with no one to sing to.

It’s in our desire to express that we see the heart of God.
Our God who’s created the towering mountains, the roar of the oceans, the quiet chirping of the crickets, and the brilliance of the stars has done so not because He desires these things alone, but because He desires us to connect with Him.  This God penned the greatest story ever told, not so we could read words on a page, but so that we might come to know the epitome of all communicative expression:  The Word, Jesus Christ: God expressed in human form.

And it’s in Him that the failure of our communication and connection is redeemed.  
He invites us to drink from the cup; to commune with Him in His sacrifice for us.  Because only He is truly faithful.
He invites us to read His word and believe His faithfulness to His promises.  Because only He is truly faithful.
He invites us to sing praises to Him.  Because only He is truly faithful.


He invites us into His story.  
And He desires that as we join Him, we invite others along with us.

Then they might come to know Him who is the purpose of all things expressed.  

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