I Can See the Fingerprints of God

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Original Painting by Amy Binder

While I was at orientation training with Wycliffe in April I was captivated by a beautiful painting that hangs in a hallway at the Wycliffe USA Headquarters. A woman carefully follows text with her finger from the pages she gently holds in her hands and her face is knit in concentration over the words she reads. When you first see the painting it almost looks like a black and white photo. But as you draw nearer you begin to see that the portrait is made up of thousands of fingerprints. The artist, a missionary to Bolivia herself, dipped her finger in ink and created the masterpiece that catches the eager grasping of the Word of God by a woman from Papua New Guinea.
Close up of the same painting
This painting mesmerized me and I often went back to gaze at it in wonder while I was in Orlando. As I studied it I was struck with how similar this painting is to the work that God is doing with and through us among the nations. We are small, like a single fingerprint but God wants to use us to help Him create something more beautiful than we can imagine.

I saw the difference that Jesus makes, as unmistakable as a fingerprint, in the lives of people when I went to Indonesia in 2012. When I was there I was able to see people who had heard the good news of Jesus and had decided to follow Him and those who had not. There was a visible difference. I was reminded of a Steven Curtis Chapman song that says, "I can see the fingerprints of God when I look at you."  I could see the despair and hopelessness of those without Jesus and I could see and sense the joy, peace and hope of those with Him without them ever saying that they were a "Christian." I particularly remember the wife of a pastor there whose smile beamed like sunshine is the swirl of downtrodden people women who lived in her village. Her joy was evident and infectious and I could see the love of Jesus spreading to others through her and her husband. This is the work God has called me to be a part of and it's the work you are part of as you journey with me.

       God is creating a masterpiece called the church among every people and nation and tongue but He chooses to involve us. He longs to include our "fingerprints" in his great masterpiece.
God wants you to invest your unique fingerprint to the work He is doing among the people of Papua New Guinea.Together we can see part of His masterpiece finished. Let's put our hands to this great work and add our prints to a masterpiece with eternal value.

                              Christ Follower,   Megan


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