Summer Refreshment Series – You are a Picture Frame

Summer Refreshment Series* – Live ABOVE the Chaos – You are a Picture Frame

God created your physical frame and personality for specific good purposes that no one else can accomplish like you can! Be encouraged that you have been handcrafted with perfection!

Laurie O’Connor, Live ABOVE the Chaos (Alpharetta: Booklogix, 2014), 95-97.

My love for photography includes an appreciation for framing because the frame showcases the picture. The wrong frame diminishes the beauty of the image. I know I have found the correct frame when the picture suddenly looks stunning.

I recall working on a scrapbook for my mom and dad for Christmas one year. We had taken my parents to Ireland that summer. The sole purpose of the trip was to take my dad to visit the town in which his great-grandfather had lived, as well as to see the church he had attended. When it came time to scrapbook a photo I had taken of the church, I looked for a paper color on which to mount it. I tried several different colors, but was not satisfied—until I tried kelly-green. Suddenly, the photo was no longer a snapshot. It was a postcard-perfect photo of the church, taken on a glorious, sun-kissed, never-ending, blue-skied day in Ireland. The transformation was all about the framing.

Let’s now apply this principle of the importance of framing art well to the Artist Himself and to the way the Artist views you. God made your frame, and since He is perfect, He gave you the perfect frame for your part in His story. You look great in His frame. In His frame for you, you are a postcard reflection of Him. To be in any other frame would make His story less beautiful.

I can dye my hair, straighten my hair, curl my hair, or cut my hair. I can gain or lose weight, pierce my ears, or wear new make-up, but I am still recognizable because of the things about me I can’t change. The way God formed my mouth, larynx, and vocal cords creates a voice distinctly my own. My height, gait, the line of my shoulders, and the shape of my body are distinct enough that I can be recognized from afar.

God also gave each of us particular personalities, capabilities, dreams, passions, and interests. Some might refer to these as elements of the “soul.” Here, I will refer to these inner qualities as the “person.” The “person,” like the frame, can experience only limited change. As for myself, I love to learn, am analytical, have always been a morning person, and have an artistic side. I am not going to change those facets of myself. They are inherent, and they are showcased through my frame. There is no separating the “person” from the frame. We can trust that just like the snapshot I took in Ireland looked perfect in its frame, our individual frames
combine with our individual persons to become postcard perfect reflections of Christ’s character to the world around us.

American culture places much emphasis on the frame. I suspect people from every culture experience the pressure to value their frames more than intangible things such as their
persons. We need to fight the urge to make the frame more important than the person. Our frame has one purpose, and one purpose only—to be the showcase through which the world can see the person God has created us to be.

*Summer Refreshment Series runs from June 10-August 12. Each week, this series will provide an excerpt from Live ABOVE the Chaos, selected specifically to encourage you in the heat of your summer months.

Picture Explanation:

These are what the frames in my home display — the people I love. Of all the pictures of people and places we view, we only frame some — the certain ones that we deem frame-able.

God has determined that each of us are frame-able. It’s astoundingly comforting to know our frames were made without error, including the personality that was woven into what others see as me and you.

I used this frame analogy in an introduction to a talk on forgiveness earlier this year if you want to take a listen HERE. If you wish to take a FREE personality test, you may do so HERE as well.

You are uniquely qualified to display God’s nature to a watching world in a way that cannot be exhibited by any other person in history.

© 2018 by Oaks Ministries. All rights reserved.