A Lesson Learned: by Robin Thomas
Negative space is a positive thing.
What’s around something is just as important. Negative space is utilized in art, movies and songs.
The most common definition of negative space is “the area around and in between a subject.”
In art, attention to negative space can make or break a drawing or painting.
Do you see a vase or two faces?
*1
In the movie, The Mortal Instrument: City of Bones,(*2) there is a scene where Clary, who has just found out she is a Shadowhunter, visits the Silent Brothers to unlock the memories her mother had blocked in her mind. She ends up writing in the dust on the floor but no one can understand what she is writing until Jace, a fellow Shadowhunter, draws a box around her scribbles and says that her memory is remembering it in the reverse, or the negative space. When the area is defined, the letters can be read, BANE, the person who blocked her memories.
Sometimes things don’t make sense until you look at them a different way. It’s a matter of perspective.
Likewise, God is in the negative space, the area around and in between. You cannot flee his presence.
King David says to God,
“I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! 8 If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave,[a] you are there. 9 If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, 10 even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me.
“You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head.”
Psalm 139: 7-10; 15 NLT
Have you ever asked yourself, “Where is God when I need Him?”
Doesn’t He know I can’t pay rent this month? Where is He when I need to be healed?
I don’t feel Him, why did He leave me?
He is with you whether you believe in Him or not. We are His creation, we cannot hide from Him or be anywhere He is not.
Essentially God is our negative space.
You can, I suppose, see that as oppressive or comforting depending on whether you are working for, or against Him. I’ll take the “comforting” 8 days a week. His presence fills my soul.
Right now I’m humming the words of the song, THE BLESSING (*3)
May His presence go before you And behind you, and beside you All around you, and within you He is with you, He is with you
In the morning (in the evening), in the evening In your coming, and your going In your weeping, and rejoicing He is for you (He is for you), He is for you (He is for you)...
HE is for YOU!
I saw a quote that I loved by Martin Luther King Jr.
“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”
Stars are bright shining lights of hope in a dark sky. Where is God? He is right with you, closer than you can grasp. HE is YOUR negative space. It's all about the perspective. And when you ask Jesus into your heart, He is inside you too.
So, you see, with God in the negative space it really is a positive!
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*1 work of Edgar Rubin, Danish psychologist c.1915
*2 The 2013 movie based on the book,The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
*3 The Blessing by Kari Jobe, Elevation Worship, Cody Carnes
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