One hundred
dollars seemed like a lot of money for two little pictures at a garage sale. In fact, most people just walked right past
them. One man, though, picked them up,
looked them over, gladly paid the price and left.
This past
May, a small, untitled oil painting, measuring just 28 by 21 centimetres, was
put up for auction at “Maynards Fine Art and Antiques” in Vancouver. Identified as being the work of iconic
Canadian artist Tom Thomson and depicting a sunrise over Ontario’s Algonquin
Park, typical of many of his works before his death in 1917, it sold for $110
000.
A second
small painting, this one a water colour by “Group of Seven” artist Fredrick
Varley was sold as well. It brought $6
500.
By now you
have likely figured out that the paintings that sold at auction for a total of
$116 500 were the $100 garage sale paintings that most people overlooked (Interestingly,
they were valued at closer to $300 000 prior to the auction).
The
question is, “How could this have happened?”
Well, the simplest answer is that one person recognized the value in
what everyone else dismissed as “junk”.
If I had a chance
to sit down with people and tell them one thing about God, I would probably tell
them the story of those paintings and then say, “That is exactly how God sees
you!”
We need to know
about a God who sees our value even when others (including ourselves) do
not. We need a picture of God that
reminds us that he does not see our setting (a garage sale full of “junk”) as
much as he sees our worth.
Those
painting were valuable because they were created by someone who was important.
So let me
ask you: “By whom were you created?”
The answer
to that question is the answer to the question, “Why are you valuable?”
We are created
in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27).
Regardless of how you see yourself, regardless of your past sins and
mistakes, God still sees the beauty and value in you because he created you.
Now, that
does not mean that God is a push-over.
He still demands obedience. Several times God says, “Be holy, because I
am holy” (1 Peter 1:16), but he loves you even when you make mistakes. He is ready to forgive when you turn around
and come home (see the stories of “The Lost Sheep”, “The Lost Coin” and “The
Lost Son” in Luke 15).
The
blessing of hope, grace and God’s love is that, by his Holy Spirit, our lives
(both now and in eternity) can become what he sees in us already.
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