Art - Creation v/s Destruction

Last night the RA's and GA's at church had a great class.

The plan was to allow the kids to team up and create abstract art. I mean, kids of all ages love to get a little messy and we've been focusing on teamwork, so what better way to accomplish both.
I explained, as best I could, what abstract art was and showed a few examples I had found on the web. The kids looked at what really was just a mess on canvas which sells for thousands of dollars in the art world, and thought they say horses and balloons. And one that just looked crazy to me, they thought they saw people jumping up and down.
So I asked them if a lesson about abstract art could be relevant to us at church.
The first one to speak up was a boy in about the 5th grade and he quickly said no. He added the only relevance art would have to church was that we were going to create it in the church social hall. A few others agreed with him and I asked again, could a lesson on creating abstract art be relevant to us in church. A little time passed when another teacher added that as Christians everything we do should be relevant to God and should be Christ centered. A few agreed with him and added their spin, but it was really cool to see all the little wheels turning as they tried to make up their own minds as to the relevance art would have to a church lesson.
As we know from the book of Genesis, God is the Creator. I asked the kids who among them thought they were created by God and did they think they were created special. They all did and we pointed out that too often we pick out something we don't like about ourselves (like being to fat or to thin, a pimple, a big nose, etc.) and we give what we see to be a flaw power to discount how special God made us. Then we talked about when someone in the classroom is making fun of someone how we tend to laugh and encourage the one dissing the other, but as Christians we should help lift up the one being made to feel cheap.
Read 1 Peter 5:8 and you will see Satan is the destroyer. When we, children and adults, laugh at racist jokes or engage in gossip, or judge someone, we too are allowing Satan to work. We are not allowing God to create love and peace from within us.
The kids worked as teams to create abstract art. They did a good job working together and some look really cool. But as I told them, when God created us, we where not abstract creations. He made us with purpose and value.
It is just something to remember when we catch ourselves judging others.
It is something to think about when we are feeling down and judging ourselves.
But it is something to be thankful for that each one of us is a child of God and that we are special and meaningful.