I follow someone on Instagram who recently posted a short process video of painting an apple. I was completely transfixed and watched it several times. The painting was so simple and yet elegant and beautiful. I’ll post a link to it to you can see what I mean. It’s probably 6 seconds long, so you’ll have to check you calendar to see if you can afford that much time. [side note: I think I just figured out how to post a hyperlink using a word, which is a fairly major technological breakthrough for me. I hope it works!]
And in case you don’t have that 6 seconds of time, I’ve got you covered with a screen shot of the finished painting.
I decided to try my hand at it today.
As expected, the professional makes it look like simplicity itself, while the amateur must straggle along trying to figure out what colors to use, how much paint, how much water, etc. Attempt #2 really makes me laugh – why so small and blobby? Mistakes were made. I watched the video a couple times before each attempt and by the time I got to Attempt #5, I was feeling a little more confident.
So what was David praying about when he asked God to keep him as the apple of His eye? I have a dim memory of someone telling me once that the apple of the eye refers to the pupil, but this doesn’t really open up the prayer to me very much. “Keep me as the pupil of your eye.” Hmmm. Time to go to the internet and do some research.
Here’s what I found on Christianity.com:
“The phrase, which first was used in the Bible, comes from a Hebrew expression that literally means “little man of the eye,” and it refers to the tiny reflection of yourself that you can see in other people’s pupils. To be the apple of someone’s eye clearly means that you are being gazed upon and watched closely by that person. Your very image is dancing in the eyes of that person! So when David asked God to “Keep me as the apple of your eye” in Psalm 17, he was asking God to keep an eye on him and not lose sight of him. David was asking that God would regard him as one would a cherished child, the object of great affection.
So, the next time you eat an apple, remember David’s prayer that he wanted to be the “little man” of God’s eye, to know that God was looking at him, seeing him, and regarding him with great affection.
O Lord, keep me as the apple of Thine eye.
I’ll probably delete this in the morning while contemplating apple eyes, which is almost the same thing as contemplating apple pies in my book.
Lynniebeemuseoday 