Cheap Facsimile

Fill in the picture

Paint by numbers is a brilliant concept. For someone that has zero skill with drawing and creating with paint, this inexpensive purchasable kit of entertainment can make someone feel accomplished, depending on how neatly they fill in the picture. 

The original packaging for paint-by-numbers proclaimed "Every man a Rembrandt", and the creator of what became a cultural phenomenon was a commercial artist named Dan Robbins. Robbins' boss commissioned him to sell more paint, and the ingenious paint-by-numbers was born. 

Paint-by-numbers is a blueprint with easy fill in instructions. No guessing or creativity is required to complete a picture; all one needs is provided in the kit, complete with brushes, tiny numbered tubs of paint, and of course, a canvas with a shadow of itself picture to be coloured in. The paint-by-numbers people were onto something and I am confident, that they made a killing with this concept and its production. Which leads me to our topic, dear reader.

Paint-by-numbers formula

The killing is being accomplished currently, via a paint-by-numbers formula. Someone painted a picture, others figured out how to section portions of it off, and then they found paint brushes to dip into the wells of colour, to fill in the numbered sections. The artist has demonically deployed the marketing staff, and promotion of this particular painting, has gone global. While the production staff handle the cash register, money cannot be given to them fast enough for this make-believe facsimile. 

Colouring in blanks

A painting as you know, is a facsimile. While many paintings seem as though they might come alive, or you and I could enter into the world depicted, they are copies of life, not to be confused with the real thing. Anyone that has enjoyed paint-by-numbers, has done so understanding that it is colouring in someone else's blanks. It is meditative and a distraction, a soothing way to not think or have to create ... and that, dear one, is exactly what has happened to the vast majority of the population. They are the paint and someone, many someones, are using them to fill in the picture they have created for themselves. 

Sell more sickness

Sell more paint, was the commission for Dan Robbins. Sell more sickness, was the commission for pharmaceutical companies. Pill popping turned into easy to sell injections, and voila, everyone that acquiesced became part of a cheap facsimile of health, not to be confused with really living. 

Dear reader, each human has significance. Each human has value and worth, and each human must choose to live their lives according to the plan God has for them, or live by the demands of the paint-by-numbers fabricator, the ruler of this world that wants to fill us in with his vile, soulless, devoid of vibrant colour, ways. 

Young vision

When my son was about seven, we were driving on the highway to get to a playdate. As we drove, he asked me, "Mummy, is this a drawing?" Unsure of what he meant, I took a moment and with my eyes on the road, I noticed the painted lines dividing the lanes. I responded, "Do you mean the painted lines on the road?". He answered, "No, Mummy, I mean all of it. Is it all a drawing?". 

Yes, Matthew, it is. It is all a drawing, a sketch, a fill in the blanks of our lives with love and peace and joy, and good will toward our fellow man. It is a paint-by-numbers life of glorifying God and paying homage to the Saviour of our souls. 

It is living for other in sacred and sanctified soulful sacrificial and pure love. It is an opportunity to choose calibration to Christ, as our model of excellency, holiness, and devotion to what is good and righteous. 

This one life we are given, is a glimpse of the perfection to come, and how we colour in the blanks matters:

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

God created the drawing and God colours the canvas. He is the beginning and the end. Let Him fill in your blanks, dear one.