Fjords and other art formations

I've spent this past week at a camp at the end of Norway's longest fjord. Skjolden is the name of the village located in this picturesque setting, surrounded by tall mountains, ice cold streams rushing down  granite walls and babbling along beds of stones into rivers meandering to this frigid fjord.

Yes, the water was indeed too cold to venture in for a swim, regardless of how inviting it's clear blue hue seemed. Yet the majesty of these surroundings captivated me, as it always has when i visit this glorious land. Who has placed these mountains here, who has made the rivers flow into deep fissions we name fjords? Is this all by chance or is it by divine design? Has it been created by a master sculptor, or is it a random result of cause and effect?

Midsummer night, the sun falls behind the mountains but does not completely set, twilight remains throughout the night. The villagers and guests gathered for the unveiling of another masterpiece, this one a sculpture made by human hands. "Jonsok" the artist calls it, a Norwegian word for a midsummer bonfire. This gleaming red metal structure was to represent a bonfire, and now stands at a point at the end of the fjord. To my eyes, this sculpture somehow failed to represent a true bonfire, and yet i thought -what man made creation can compare with God's creation?

The real Jonsok, a burning fire, the art of it's beauty as it's Creator has conceived, cannot be replicated by man.  It's the master artist's design, and any attempt to create a duplicate or representation will always dim in comparison.

I was left wondering about this "Jonsok" sculpture, was the artist happy with the final result? From what i understood, other people and companies actually built the sculpture from the artists design. She never put her hands on the material, the metal as it was bent into the the shape she designed, since she was far way in California, sending instructions by e-mail. Was the end result a fulfillment of what she had conceived in her mind?

What happens when the master artist's design does not stay in tact from conception to reality? The mountains, the streams, the deep fjords, the flame of the original "Jonsok" burning by the waters, a creation of The Master Creator, flawless in His design. And standing in midst of this, a sculpture made by human hands, but not the hands of the artist as she was thousands of miles away. Was this artist's vision fulfilled? If it wasn't, she certainly didn't say.

I thought of us humans. We are also like sculptures, masterpieces, God's workmanship. So what happens when we are far from The Artist, perhaps thousands of miles from the Author of our life? Can we fulfill His vision, the conception of who He designed us to be? Or are we as a skewed man made sculpture, far from the author's perfect design?

The Scripture says, 'We are God's workmanship, created to do good works which He has prepared in advance' (Eph. 2:10). Like the sculpture and the artist, we can be either be a close replicate of what our Creator wants us to be, or an abstract sculpture, a distortion of the Author's design. As i sit here and wonder, i consider God's wonderful creation, and then consider man's. Can a comparison be made? Whatever we do on our own fades in comparison to God's design.

So as God's workmanship, are we focused on Him, are we as clay in His hands? Or are we bent into some abstract sculpture by people, a distorted image shaped by influences that surround us?