(Another writing from the archives)
This article reminded me of something the Lord showed me several years ago, which I added below.
“Picked up for 3 bucks, Chinese bowl goes for $2.2 million at auction”
By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News
A Chinese bowl that a New York family picked up for $3 at a garage sale turned out to be a 1,000-year-old treasure and has sold at auction for $2.2 million.
The bowl — ceramic, 5 inches in diameter and with a saw-tooth pattern etched around the outside — went to a London dealer, Giuseppe Eskenazi, at Sotheby’s auction house in New York on Tuesday.
Sotheby’s said the bowl was from the Northern Song Dynasty, which ruled China from 960 to 1127 and is known for its cultural and artistic advances.
The auction house said the only other known bowl of similar size and design has been in the collection of the British Museum for more than 60 years. The house had estimated that this one would sell for $200,000 to $300,000.
Sotheby’s did not identify the sellers, but said they put the bowl up for auction after consulting with experts. The family bought the bowl in 2007 and had kept it on a mantel in the years since. There weren’t any additional details made public about the garage sale where they had purchased the item.
Years ago, the Lord showed me a picture of an oil painting, sitting on an old, chrome framed, yellow vinyl, kitchen chair. The chair was sitting out on the lawn, with masking tape across one corner of the paintings frame.
As I pondered what the scene meant, I remembered hearing stories about people who’ve cleaned out attics and inadvertently sold valuable masterpieces, by artists like Rembrandt or Picasso; sometimes getting as little as five or ten dollars at a yard sale. Obviously, the people, who found those old pictures, had no idea of their value; and as I continued to meditate on this, a deeper understanding began to emerge.
The most obvious meaning of this picture was that God considers each of His children to be a masterpiece, regardless of whether they’ve ever been treated like one. Sadly, when you’ve been handled like old junk, it becomes easier to believe that’s what you are. But in truth, the real value of a masterpiece is not diminished by the failure of its beholder to understand its worth. It is the one who undervalues the artifact who ultimately suffers the loss.
Few would argue God’s credentials as a “Master” Creator; but just as it is with the Master Painters here on earth, some might want to quibble over His “greater” and “lesser” works. Yet to the artist, each work is an expression of their inner being, each is valuable and irreplaceable. One painting might get more attention than another, one may bring more profit, but each one is of equal value in reflecting the heart and vision of its creator. Undoubtedly, if those who looked upon such a painting, with untrained eyes, had known the name of the artist, they may have had some greater sense of its worth.
Genuine art lovers can often pick up subtle details in a picture that an unskilled or maybe even an uncaring eye might miss. They can often derive much more significance from a work than someone who only scans for the obvious; and so it is with us.
We may not always see the beauty in people, but how often have we really looked for it. We may not always understand what the Creator was trying to convey to us, but simply knowing who created them should make these works valuable to us. While this may be difficult with some people, it may be most difficult as we look in the mirror. I sense that God’s heart is just as grieved when we don’t understand our own value to Him, as when we don’t see the value in others.
I believe that God wants us to be like the lovers of great art; to look deeply into His creation and to find Him in it. The scripture says that the invisible qualities of God are found in the things He created and that we were created in His own image.
I sense that He is calling us to look past the obvious (love covers a multitude of sins) and to find the beauty He’s placed inside of each one of His children. Once we find it, I believe that He would have us cultivate (i.e. to shine the light on and water) it. Isn’t that what Jesus did?
He didn’t focus on the flaws or mistakes; He treated each one as precious and valuable. We can see that people were transformed by that (e.g. the woman at the well, the woman taken from the bed of adultery, the woman at the well, Zacchaeus…).
Jesus told the apostles that people would know His followers by the way that they loved each other. Is that how people know us church folk? How much of a difference would it make if we sought the beauty that God placed in each person and if we truly valued them as a unique creation, from the hands of a Master Artist. If our hearts are going to align with His, we are going to have to become more passionate about those He created.
Bjcorbin's Blog 
Fitting In
Posted in Commentaries, Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged apprehension, audience, compare, compete, conceal, concerto, covet, differences, embarassed, estrangement, facade, fit in, fitting in, five-fold, humiliation, identity, insecurity, jealousy, mindset, naked, puzzle, stronghold, subconscious, symphony, trauma, unique, unity on June 13, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Throughout my lifetime I have heard countless people attest to the fact that they feel as though they “never really fit it,” which is a sentiment that is generally greeted with a hearty chorus of amens. Even folks who seem to be popular and successful often profess to battling such feelings. Indeed, in all my years I’ve never encountered even one person claim the converse of this condition (i.e., I feel like I always “fit in”).
I’ve heard Psychologists assert that most people wrestle with the subconscious fear that, “if you really knew me, you wouldn’t love me,” and I sense that is probably truer than any of us would like to admit. There does seem to be a very human tendency to conceal and safeguard the inner most part of our being for fear of being rejected. Though some experience traumatic levels of rejection at a very young age, this apprehension seems to be prevalent even in those who haven’t.
Anxiety about other people truly knowing us tends to manifest itself as insecurity, which then becomes a breeding ground for covetous, competition, envy, manipulation, and strife. Needless to say, all of those dynamics are highly destructive in terms of our relationship to others, which greatly impedes our ability to function as a family, a community or as a body of believers. Given Jesus’ description of how people would be able to distinguish His followers (i.e., by their strong, loving relationships -John 13:35), this would seem to be a significant issue for those who are called by His name.
In praying about the root of this problem, I sense that it goes all the way back to the first man, and his decision in the garden. When Adam and Eve were walking in undeterred fellowship with the Father, they were aware of their nakedness, but they were unashamed (Gen.2:25). Yet immediately after eating the fruit, it says that their nakedness became a source of humiliation (Gen.3:7), and they felt the need to cover themselves.
Though the scripture doesn’t really describe these coverings, I sensed the Spirit clarify that they didn’t feel the need to cover their face, or hands, or legs… It was only the parts of them that looked different from each other that they felt compelled to conceal.
Prior to eating the” fruit of the knowledge of good and evil,” they viewed each other through the lens of the Father’s love, and were unashamed of their differences, but after the fall, they viewed each other through the context of their own senses, and were embarrassed by the things that made them unique.
Thus, mankind became mired in an endless cycle of comparison, covetousness, and competition, which turns out to be the antithesis of unity. This pattern became lethal within the first generation, as jealousy compelled Cain to murder his brother (Gen.4:8).
Considering that our Creator saw fit to make each one of His children a unique expression of Himself (Gen.1:27), and that Paul would later describe the Body of Christ as the coming together of all these distinctive aspects (1Cor.12:1-26), our apprehension at being vulnerable and genuine with one another is no doubt at the heart of our ineffectiveness in manifesting the body that the Lord described.
Our concept of “fitting in” seems to be predicated on the idea that we will be just like everyone else. So we tend to dress like the proverbial “them”, speak like them, and act like them, in the vain hope that we will find acceptance. But no two pieces of a puzzle are exactly alike, and if they were, a clear picture would not emerge at the end. I would suggest that we were not created to “fit in,” we were designed to “fit together”.
Yet, even if we come to recognize the power in diversity that potential can only be realized when each member of the group is willing to yield to the unique aspects of the others. The whole cannot partake of its rich variety of parts, if a singular element or elite grouping is allowed to dominate at the expense of the others.
Indeed, a clarinet was never meant to sound like a flute, and you actually need both to play the symphony as it was originally written. But you’re not likely to hear either of them if the brass continues to play beyond their prescribed stanzas.
Church models that promote some to be soloists, while making the remainder accompanists (or even worse, simply an audience) virtually ensure that we will never truly function as the body described in scripture (1Cor.12:12-20). Much of the new Apostolic movement has fallen into this trap, as they seek to elevate the position of a few, when the five-fold gifts were actually intended to cultivate the gifts of the many (Eph.4:12-13). Effective “Five-fold” ministry is when every member’s gift finds its place at the table (and every instrument is given its rightful place within the concerto).
Sadly, these mindsets (e.g., I never fit it, if you really knew me you wouldn’t love me…) have become strongholds within the body, and drive most people to willingly forfeit their seat within the orchestra. They will happily sit in the audience if it means that no one will ever truly see what is inside of them. And they will freely gather around someone else’s gifts, while their gifts go dormant.
There is little doubt that the enemy of our souls loves to stir our sense of alienation, so that we will willingly isolate ourselves from the group. It is a classic predator tactic. These feelings of estrangement are often at the emotional core of those who pursue and assume a completely new identity in the hope of finding a suitable new tribe (i.e., the place where they fit in).
Of course, the cost of pursuing a new identity is the identity that they were endowed with by their Creator, which tends to relentlessly haunt them in moments of quiet reflection. They suppose that no one can accept them for who they really are, when it is actually their innermost being that is rejecting this contrived facade.
If this compulsion to “fit in” and be like everyone else is a byproduct of mankind’s fall, then the antidote surely lies in returning to God’s original plan, which is to view ourselves and each other through the lens of the Father’s love (Psalm 139:14, John 13:34). Until we learn how to walk together in unity, by considering others before ourselves (Phil.2:3-4) and submitting to one another in love (Eph.5:21), we will not be able to experience the fullness the Lord authored for His Body (1Cor.12:12-20).
If we continue to fall into the snare of the compare-covet-compete dynamic, we will remain a house divided (Mark 3:25) and never step into the fulness that has been authored for us. For this, and so many other issues, the renewing of our minds (Rom.12:2) is at the heart of the “revival” we cry out for.
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