Thursday, July 17, 2014

Day 198- A Lego First

I went to Pensacola for a while today.  If you read my blog a lot, you will be glad to know that nobody was in the hospital. I know it seems that every time I'm out of town I'm visiting someone in the hospital, but not today.

Last night I decided to do an Internet search to see if I could find any interesting "firsts' to do in Pensacola.   I saw there where as an exhibit at the Pensacola Museum of Art titled "The Art of the Brick."  That sounds like something. I had no idea what it was.  How does one create art out of bricks?  As I read about it, I found out this was art made out of Lego bricks. That's right, the little Lego bricks (I've never heard them called bricks before) that you and your children play with some guy has made art out of it.  I visited the Pensacola Museum of Art and saw "The Art of the Brick" display today for my "first."

It seems that this is kind of big deal.  The museum website said, "The Art of the Brick is one of the largest and most popular art exhibits touring the globe. CNN hailed The Art of the Brick as one of the top twelve “must-see exhibitions in the world. This year alone, we’ve visited Brussels, Singapore and Taiwan,” said Sawaya. “We are thrilled to be bringing this collection to Pensacola, Florida.”   I can think of 12 other things I'd rather see, but it was kind of cool.

It seems that this guy named Nathan Sawaya started playing with Legos as a child and never quit.  What he did quit was his law practice 10 years ago to be an artist; it seems mostly with Legos.  Quite the career shift, don't you think?  I found the museum and went to see the Legos. This guy spends quite a bit of time with Legos.  It truly was pretty fascinating what he made out of Legos.  One of the little message boards says he carries a sketch pad around and will sketch something and then build it out of Legos.  However he does it, the man can build with Legos.




 






This was a tall pointy finger

Laura and I 







This was made by Joel 
 
 
This guy knew what to do with a pile of Legos.  Some of these creations were about my height; others were about 2-3 feet tall.  The closer you got, the more you could see the distinct pieces, but from further away it was hard to tell these were made out of Legos.
 
As I looked about the display, I was reminded of Ephesians 2:10 which says, "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."  The word handiwork is actually a word that means masterpiece.  When I think about what Nathan can do with Legos I thought about what God can do with our lives.  Some of us may not feel like we are very talented, but we have more to offer than a bunch of Lego bricks.  God is a better craftsman than Nathan is.  So, we need to present our lives to God to make something beautiful out of us.  God really does not care how we look.  God wants to make something beautiful out of our hearts.  He wants to make something beautiful out of us that looks a lot like Jesus.
 
I also thought about how Nathan has total freedom over the Lego bricks. When he puts one in place, it doesn't run off somewhere else. The bricks never complain and quit.  I bet they never compare themselves with others and says stuff like, "I'm tired of being a pointy finger, I want to be the boy for a while." Or, "how come that brick gets to be in the face and I have to be a knee that nobody pays attention to."  For God to make something beautiful of our lives, we have to remain in His hand and let Him do what He wants to do with us.  He's the wisest craftsman in the world.  Trust Him to do something worthwhile with your life.  And remember, when He places you somewhere, don't go running off or quit.  He knows what He's doing.
 
 
In His Hands for the abundant life
Barry
 
3 things I thank God for today
1. Ice
2. Laughter
3. Ephesians 2:10 that reminds me that God wants to do something beautiful in all of our lives.
 

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