Sunflowers

If I had the skill and the time, I could re-create a painting.  I could match Van Gogh's Sunflowers stroke for stroke.  Perhaps I could even use period paints and materials to make it a complete exact match.  If I did so, what would it's value be?  A couple hundred?  A couple thousand?  It would still be the same beautiful painting as the original and based on that maybe someone would offer even more, appreciating beauty for beauties sake, even if it is a facsimile.  But because the painting was made by a restaurant manager and not a master, then it will never reach the millions of dollars that a painting like Sunflowers is currently worth. ($83 Million)



So what's the difference?  The difference is the author, the creator.  This painting has value because of who created it.  It is the same for us.  Our value is derived from our Creator.  

We hear cries for Truth, Mercy, Justice, Love and Peace.  We all want these things, but why are these things in demand?  Did they just randomly and through time show up in our culture of humanity?  Or were they placed there by the One who created everything?  These concepts are operating on the seemingly universal truth that life has value.  However, if humanity has arrived at it's current place only by chance, through the machinations of Time + Matter  + Chance then what is the argument for the importance of life?  If we came from nothing, then despite our immediate desires for survival, we are worth nothing.  But that is not what I believe and that is not where I put my hope.  And if we find the courage to put our hope in God, believing that he has created and trusting that our value comes from him, then that changes everything.  In this truth we find the realization that all human life has value. And well, as flawed as we are, that seems like a good place to start.