You Are God’s Work of Art! How to Discover God’s UNIQUE Path to The Good Life!

For we are God’s masterpiece, created in the Messiah Jesus to perform good actions that God prepared long ago to be our way of life. (Eph 2:10 ISV)

By nature, I believe we love and long for beauty. In 2023, the top 100 art museums in the world received 175–176 million visitors. The Louvre in Paris, France was the most visited art museum in 2023 with around 8.9 million visitors, followed by the Vatican Museums, British Museum and the National Gallery in DC. When you visit museums, you notice the meticulous care that goes into protecting each work of art. Each is valued, in part, because of its uniqueness.

In the same way, each of you are a beautiful, unique creation of God! Each person has unique DNA, unique fingerprints, and uniquely fashioned by the Creator. In Eph 2:10, you are called God’s workmanship, masterpiece – His Art! The word in Greek is “poieo’ ” , from which we get the word poem.

Our Beautiful Person

“What you are is God’s gift to you, what you become is your gift to God” – Hans Urs von Balthasar,

I often have the joy of doing one of my favorite seminars for women: Simply Beautiful: Skills for Success which gains its foundation in scripture, and is gathering in my book 7 Simple Skills for Every Woman. I begin my seminar by framing up the context of God creating women from Genesis 1. God made:

the light and dark…and it was good

the sky…and it was good

the land, seas, palnts, trees …and it was good

the sun, moon, stars…and it was good

the sea creatures and birds…and it was good

the land animals… and it was good

man…and he was good

woman…and it was VERY good!

The word “good” is the word “TOB” ( to·vv) and it appears in the Old Testament more than 500 times, and when God repeats Himself, it is an important word! On its surface, TOB means good or pleasant, but the more I studied it, especially when I wrote my portions of Discovering Hope in the Psalms: A Creative Bible Study Experience, the deeper and broader this little word’s meaning became. In the creation story, good means beautiful, the kind of beauty found in the origins of creation- beautiful, functioning the way God intended. As I studied “good” in its context in the Psalms, my working definition of Tob or good is that which is beautiful, bountiful, best and blessed! That is how God views each of us, His artful creation, and I also believe that is the kind of life path God wants to give to each of us as we walk in obedience with Him.

One of my favorite verses in Psalms that also includes this word “TOB” is Psalm 34:8 NIV:

Taste and see that the LORD is good (Tob); blessed (Happy) is the one who takes refuge in him.

I love how God often gives simple instructions on how to receive His goodness—in this verse, “take refuge” , or seek shelter in Him.

Our Beautiful Path

So how can we take these principles from both the Old and New Testaments and begin to apply them to our own lives to help answer one of man’s most asked questions,

“Who am I”?

One of the methods I use to aid my audiences in self – discovery from a more Biblical worldview is to first take a look at the “You Are’s of the New Testament- these are the things Jesus says we are in Him:

Salt of the Earth* Light of the World* More Valuable Than the Birds* In Me and I in you* Already Clean* Branches*My Friends* Heirs of the Prophets and Covenant* Servants of the Most High* Called*Weak in Your Natural Selves* God’s Fellow workers, Field, Building* God’s Temple* Strong and Honored* Standing Firm* Body of Christ* A Letter from Christ* Christ’s Ambassador* Sons of God* Abraham’s Seed* Heirs*Children of the Promise* Fellow Citizens* Members of God’s Household* Children of the Light* Mist* Living Stones* Chosen People, Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation* Daughters of Sarah*

(Listed with scripture on pages 188-190 in 7 Simple Skills for Every Woman)

Secondly, an enjoyable activity that also helps us discover the unique creation God made us to be, and to begin learning the “good works God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” is to simply ask those in our world,

“What one word do you think would best capture who God made me?”

A modern-day movie that captures this kind of self-discovery is found in “Eat.Pray. Love” and a character asked Julia Roberts, “Who are you” (not what do you do, not what is on your business card, etc), rather what is the essence of you? I was on a plane watching this movie and Bill was sitting next to me. I felt the Holy Spirit prompt me to ask myself, “What is the essence of Bill?”

“Lord, Bill is so wise. People from all over the world seek him out for his biblically-based counsel and coaching. He is also so kind, so gentle—actually, Bill is so loving.” At that point I realized we had named our ministry, instinctually, after Bill’s strengths: Love-Wise.

During this season, I also was reading MORE magazine, a resource for women over 40. The editor asked her staff to select one word that best captured who they were at the core. I was intrigued by the question, so I posted it to my Facebook. I got a long list of replies, and many repeated. So I took the words and placed them into a word art software program. The program took the most repeated words and enlarged them.

Then my daughter in love gathered her children and asked, “What words do you think of when you think of Nana? “She then framed this as my Christmas gift, it has become one of my most precious gifts to this day because it both captures the essence of who God created me to be—and also points to the path God wants me to continue to walk.

Lastly, ask,

“How can I make God’s imprint of me memorable?”

I encourage you to create a document that captures the masterpiece of who God created you to be! Go through these simple steps gather the beautiful words that capture your essence, then make some kind of frameable art and display it in a place in your home to remind you that you are God’s YOUnique creation and as you spend time with God, your Creator in the Word and in prayer, He will lead you on the path to the “good” life, that which is beautiful, bountiful, best and blessed.