As I wander in the special exhibit area of the Portland Museum of Art, I am at a loss for words. I’m surrounded by the sublime, exacting basketmaking by the artist, Jeremy Frey, who is keeping alive this Passamaquoddy traditional art form.

Each basket is, indeed, a work of art: meticulously crafted, a wonder of consistency and pattern, mathematical in beauty. It is hard to fathom the effort – and patience – that went into these.

This interplay of dark and light, of black ash and the paler sweetgrass, sparks a thought. It visualizes for me another of the challenging attributes of God: his sovereignty. In short, God’s sovereignty is his rule. As the great King, he can do as he pleases. He needs to ask no one’s permission to act.

Scripture is filled with people addressing him as sovereign. (The book of Ezekiel, alone, uses the word 210 times!) David uses it seven times in one prayer:

For the sake of your word and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant. “How great you are, Sovereign Lord.” 2 Samuel 7: 21-22

This, of course, can pose problems from our limited point of view.  Life on earth can feel very chaotic and random. At times, it can appear that God doesn’t care or is powerless to interfere. And yet, the his sovereignty assures us that he has a plan and the autonomy to enact it.

God is not indifferent, but is behind the scenes of human action. Walter Scott (1796 -1861)

The great Christian sage, Augustine, weighs in:

in a strange and ineffable fashion even that which is done against his will is not done without his will. For it would not be done without his allowing it—and surely his permission is not unwilling but willing—nor would he who is good allow the evil to be done, unless in his omnipotence he could bring good even out of evil. 

the will of the Omnipotent is always undefeated.

We see the strands. God sees the weave. In a way, this analogy is akin to Scripture’s use of the potter and the pot (Isaiah 29, for example), where the vision of the Creator is vastly wiser than that of the created thing.

But I like how these baskets, unlike the pots, incorporate both light and dark elements. God’s kingdom, had it been constructed of only bright strands, would have been glorious. But with the dark interwoven with the light, it is more astonishing.

God rules. Guided by his word and his will, he is carefully constructing something we cannot comprehend, but when complete, its intricacy and intent and beauty – like these works of art – will leave us speechless in wonder.

That is, until we start to sing his praises.

(turning a Charles Hodge quote to a prayer) O God, your sovereignty is the ground of peace and confidence to all your people. We rejoice that the Lord God omnipotent reigneth; that neither necessity, nor chance, nor the folly of man, nor the malice of Satan controls the sequence of events and all our issues. Praise be for your powerful, wise rule!

Reader: Where have you caught a glimpse of God weaving a “loose strand” of yours into a something beautiful?

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