Joining the dots

This is a blog from a friend of Mahabba Network. Names and details have been deliberately removed to protect the identity of those involved, but praise God - he is working in the lives of Muslims to reveal Jesus!

Reflecting on the dots

In the 1880s French artist Georges Seurat introduced an art form known as pointillism. As the name suggests, Seurat used small dots, or points, of colour to create an artistic image.

Up close, his work looks like groupings of individual dots. Yet as the observer steps back, the human eye blends the dots into brightly coloured portraits or landscapes.

We can think of September as a month when we start filling the picture of our year with dots. Each day fills with greys, reds, ambers and greens, that may fill us with trepidation or excitement, and leave us feeling anywhere between exhausted or invigorated at the end of the day.

It’s only when we step back and reflect that we start to see patterns and shapes.

The picture that emerges may square up to the one we had in mind at the start. But more often, it has unexpected shades of light and dark that present us with a different image to the one we planned.

In the same way, the two on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13) were reflecting on the ‘dots’ of events that had happened over the Passover weekend in Jerusalem.

They saw only dark and sombre tones of violence and death. The picture of Jesus, as they left Jerusalem, did not square up to the picture they had planned for Jesus, the prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and the people (v. 19).

Then Jesus joins up the dots for them, bringing the light and shade of Moses and the prophets, and all the things the scriptures had been saying about the Messiah (v. 27).

As Jesus breaks the bread at home in Emmaus, they are given a moment to stand back and see the full, beautiful picture.

In the same way, our ministries may push us right up against the canvas with busy schedules, scarce resources and a lack of workers for the harvest.

We might have only our own dot and a couple surrounding in sight (and their colours might even be on the opposite side of the colour spectrum to ours). But are we perhaps forming a beautiful image together?

On 13 October, Birmingham wants to have such a day of standing back and joining the dots of those working to engage with Muslims in our city.