Re-Centering Your World

One of my favorite paintings is Diego Rivera’s mural at the Detroit Institute for the Arts titled: “Detroit Industry North Wall.”  I grew up with this painting because my Dad had a copy of it hanging on the wall in our garage for as long as I can remember.  I love the detail, the colors, the energy, and just the power of the men and machine working together to build automobiles.  

Granted… my dad’s copy of the mural is not the full mural, and it was backwards… but needless to say when I saw the whole mural for the first time, I was shocked to notice immediately that something was not right. The mural was just slightly off center!  

Look specifically at the fresco border at the bottom on either side of the five workers who are pushing an engine along the assembly line.  Do you see how the fresco border is longer on the right than it is on the left? Granted, maybe this just means Rivera wasn’t OCD like me! 
   
But silliness aside, I believe Rivera intentionally painted this mural off-center for a reason which I will explain below.



On this image above I have drawn in the actual center line of the mural in black.  The Red line is the median point between the two fresco borders labeled at the bottom of the mural.  Do you see how in between the Actual center line and the Median line is the worker in the mustard yellow outfit?  

This space the worker occupies is exactly how much off center the mural is.  He fits almost too perfectly between these two lines to just be a coincidence.  Since he is in the process of exerting a pulling force from the right to the left, quite literally, by putting his back into it, he is literally dragging this entire mural to the left, thus explaining why it is off center to begin with!

Now this worker is not working alone.  He has about four other helpers on his team, and each of them is working just as hard to push that heavy engine down the assembly line.  Look at how all five of these workers are all painted at a 45° angle.   In comparison, everyone else in the factory is essentially standing up straight as if to say they just aren’t working as hard.

All I can say is this: Were these workers not there laboring away, this mural would be perfectly centered.  Their presence, hard work, and determination make all the difference in the world.

Pray Boldly

There is a spiritual application to this mural as well which teaches us a lesson about prayer.  

It has been said that prayer is powerful and effective, that prayer can move mountains, even move the heart of God… And yet, just like most of the workers in this painting, most people simply don’t put their backs into prayer. 

Now I’m convinced that it isn’t because people don’t value prayer, no one in that factory mural would have thought those workers were unimportant.  I think we don’t pray because prayer is really hard work, prayer often isn’t glorious work, and lastly we are like most everyone else in that factory busy doing something else.  

Abraham is supposed to be one of the most righteous men in the Bible, and if you remember in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18), God tells Abraham his plans to destroy the cities completely because of their wickedness.  What happens next is Abraham tries to bargain with God to spare the cities by praying that God first would spare the cities if they held 50 righteous people… but then in second guessing the “righteousness” or lack thereof in these cities, he goes down to 45, then 40… then 30… 20… and finally he gets God down to agreeing to spare the cities if 10 righteous people can be found in the cities, and this is where Abraham cuts his prayer for mercy off. 

The story ends with God not finding ten righteous people and so the cities are doomed. 

But God did find four righteous people...Just think for a minute… What if Abraham had prayed for mercy on behalf of four?

Sure God warned Lot and his family so they could escape the destruction (Genesis 19), but Lot uses this opportunity to do something unexpected.  Lot dares to asks God to spare an entire city just because it was closer than the mountain hideaway God had told him to escape to.  Believe it or not God spared that city simply because Lot asked God to.

Think about it, where Abraham, the father of the faith failed, Lot prevailed simply because his prayer was bolder than Abraham’s prayer!  I truly believe God would have been willing to offer more mercy if Abraham would have been bold enough to ask for it.  So while this story gets a bad rap for being a fire and brimstone story about God, it actually is not so much a story about the judgment of God so much as it is a story about how our prayers truly can make a difference and actually matter.

Now you don’t have to quit your day job to pray as the best of prayers don’t take but a few moments to express the deepest anguish on your heart.  But it does take time to be honest and express your feelings to God.  Sadly, time is often that commodity we are most unwilling to give back to God.

So when life overwhelms you, when the world seems like it is off-center and imbalanced… Just remember, this is not the time to be timid… this is the time to pray with all your heart, all your mind, and all your strength!   Who knows?  God might just answer your prayer, but you will never know if you don't put your back into prayer and persevere in it.  Just as Rivera's workers in "Detroit Industry North Wall" were able to literally move this mural by putting their backs into it, God too can be moved to mercy when we pray and boldly ask for it.  

Prayer truly makes all the difference in the world.


    Ron Ullrich is an
  Associate Pastor at 
Generations of Grace
     in Lebanon, TN.