Weekly Devotional

OFTEN TIMES

 Often, times when God directs us down a path we couldn’t have imagined, we are tempted to think our life is out of control.  However, I recently read this insight in a class at our church:
God is sovereign, creative, and utterly good.  He is able to form and reform our lives even out of the most unlikely and painful circumstances and events we experience.  God wants to lovingly work in and through us for good (Rom. 8:28-29)…  Artist Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) described it in this way: “Christ…is more of an artist than the artists; he works in the living spirit and the living flesh; he makes men instead of statues.” 
For some reason I felt compelled to find out more of Van Gogh’s story, a fellow Dutchman, so I looked him up on Wikipedia, a source of truth second only to the Bible.  (Just kidding!) He seemed to have a fairly stable childhood, and his father was a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church.  One traumatic aspect of his early years was being sent to a boarding school.  He begged his parents to return home, but they refused, and his relationship with his family was never the same after that.  However, he did fairly well as a young man working as an art dealer, which was a common trade among his extended relatives.  Before too long, however, he grew tired of that calling and began to drift.
During his twenties, Van Gogh stumbled in and out of various jobs and living situations and had a hard time figuring out what he was supposed to do with his life.  There were even periods of extreme, almost monastic religious devotion and a failed attempt at joining full-time ministry.  It wasn’t until he was around 30 years old that he began to take art very seriously and studied the craft.  He mingled with great artists and experimented with different approaches to painting.  He also fell into heavy drinking, struggled with depression, and eventually committed suicide at age 37.
The final seven years of Van Gogh’s life were inspired artistically, yet very sad on a personal level in many ways.  He was never recognized in his lifetime as a great artist and only sold one of his paintings. Today, however, he is revered as a pioneer in post-impressionist art forms, and many of his paintings are worth a fortune. One of my favorite anecdotes of his life was when he painted a portrait of Dr. Gachet, who was taking care of him towards the end of his life in a mental institution.  He presented the painting to the doctor, who accepted the gift but never liked it.  Apparently, at one point, he even used the canvas to prop up part of the roof of his chicken coop.  He later gave it away, and in 2010 it sold at auction for $50 million.
Despite living a life that was full of struggle and tragedy and being misunderstood as an artist, Van Gogh believed that God was working in his life and forming him into the image of Christ.  His family life was lacking, his calling was undefined, he was a genius at art yet not able to make a living at it, and his days ended in despondency and death…yet somehow God was patiently walking and talking with him in the midst of it all.
Like “Starry Night”, our lives will probably be a swirl of dark nights and bright lights all mixed together. Whatever “surprises” you are facing today, both blessings and trials, know that God is with you, and He is working, and believe He can use any and all things to direct your path toward His ultimate purposes.                 

-Cory Grimm