Venice

The second week on our trip we went to the San Marco Church in Venice. This was a very beautiful church in the island city. This visit to the church taught me many things. One of these things was that the people that made these beautiful works of art were very skilled. These were great people that God had blessed with an awesome skill. These people could have used the gifts and skills that they were given for whatever they wanted to use it for. These people instead decided to use these gifts to teach others about God. They made three main domes with mosaics. These domes went from the depicting the Old Testament, depicting the New Testament, and Jesus' ascension, and the Pentecost. This was a great way of visualizing the gospel to those who can't necessarily read. These artists wanted to use their gifts to fill a need in their world. It just makes me think of all the great things and gifts hat God has given me. And it makes me question if I am using those gifts to truly glorify Him.
However this is not all that I got from this beautiful trip. God really wanted me to see how even little details matter. Let me explain: The mosaics by definition are made of little tiny pieces of tile and these pieces make a bigger picture. Without some of the little tiles the mosaic would not be complete. This is also true of the family of God how everyone has a purpose and that these purposes are important to His plan. Likewise the artisans made everything to have a purpose; from the colors to the fact that the book Jesus was holding was closed (He is the Word), to even the direction of the church (entered in the west and went to the east, from the darkness to the world to the brightness of the Kingdom of Heaven – sunrise from sunset). This apparently little things all add up to a beautiful church that is used to further the kingdom of heaven through its artwork. You can see that something so small and apparently useless can be used by God to His glory. While this is a lesson that we have be taught since Sunday School, God wanted to remind me through this trip about the fact that he has a plan for little old me.

God bless!