Once I longed for the perfect studio with north light streaming from a window, lined with walls of inspiring books, neat shelves holding tubs, jars and tubes of paint in every color of the rainbow, mannequins and easels, brushes in every conceivable size and shape, like sentinels standing guard.....
Sweepstakes offering an entire studio full of art supplies and furniture would send me into happy daydreaming.
Now I enter my familiar, messy studio, grateful for TIME to create anything at all! Hours spent with Jesus, pushing paint or shaping clay, are hours well spent. Supplies have almost become incidental!
Once I worried that I would run out. Now I trust that He will always keep me supplied with something to make a mark of thanksgiving to Him for the strange and wonderful gift of ART!
" ... the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose." Isaiah 35:1
I am awed at the power of God to transform deserts to gardens and forests, enrich the poor, feed the hungry... No one can reverse circumstances like He can. Biblical accounts of the many creative ways He did just that, keeps me hoping. Nations were created in a day, enemies vanquished, famines erased, and the destinies of those who trusted Him were suddenly reversed from helpless to mighty.
I believe we're in another momentous sliver of time. God is working just such a transformation. Corruption that seemed deeply entrenched is being uprooted and discarded on the dunghill of history. Enemies of truth are being defeated. Truth always prevails. He IS TRUTH.
Watch Israel and be awed! This skinny piece of fiercely contested land, surrounded by powerful, well funded enemies is walking out victory that was foretold thousands of years ago! May blind eyes be opened to God by simply viewing events there!
But God has not limited His work to Israel. Followers of Jesus, who have served by faith, through long, arid years, without seeing much visible fruit, are suddenly experiencing moments of sheer awe as God pulls back the veil that once blinded them. They now have clarity about their destiny. Hope is reignited.
If you're an artist and not quite there yet. May my words encourage you.
Your studio doesn't have to be perfect, your heart towards God must! Be utterly surrendered. If He is THE honored guest in your studio, or wherever you create art (your closet, a cluttered kitchen table or anything in between) then your least work will be worthy.
He will bring increase that is never limited to the material, but spanning vast unexplored realms of the spiritual. His ability to make you fruitful is as creative and unexpected as all His work in history. He loves you and you are precious!
Art is not trivial. It has its place and usefulness in His kingdom. To that end He will move you, the artist, teaching you where you fit in.
Find your rest in His faithfulness and don't stress over the process or apparent lost time. Redeeming and restoring is what He does best!
Just like a perfect studio is immaterial to the making of art, perfect ability is also.
The Lord's anointing is to be pursued. His presence in your studio helping you create, leading and guiding your efforts for fruitfulness, is the pursuit to engage in. And for that, purify your heart and turn to Him with sincerity and integrity.
Then your desert will bloom as a rose.
Don't forget to glorify Him when that happens, every time it happens!
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