God: The Good and Beautiful Artist
A Devotional for the Lent Season
“Do I have to go?” I would whine as I squirmed into the backseat of our faded-blue Ford Explorer.
“Oh please, am I going to have to call the Waaaaaambulance?” My dad always had the same response when I started to complain.
“Dad it’s not funny! I hate art. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it!”
Mom would usually chime in once I got to this stage of my weekly pout. “Hate is a strong word,” she would say in her stern voice.She doesn’t break it out often anymore, but mom means business when she uses her stern voice. She meant business that day.
The use of her stern voice was normally accompanied by the use of her stern hand, so it was about time for me to shut up.
I must have been feeling bold on this particular day because I piped back, “If there was a stronger word than *hate*, I would use it to describe the way I feel about art!” Cut me some slack. First-grade Nolan didn’t know stronger words existed. I was so naive. I remember the feeling — A sense of dread would flood over me like a waterfall of emotion as soon as I could smell the crayons coming from the art room. I. Hated. Art. I was the only student in the whole 1st grade who did not get a piece of art put in the art show. Yea. I was that bad. It drove me crazy! I would try so hard to win the approval of my teacher (who happened to be a part-time art teacher and part-time witch).
I’m still mad that my three-legged dinosaur didn’t make it in the show.
Art class made me feel dumb. I felt inferior and incompetent in there. So, I decided to hate art. It was the easiest thing for me to do. My self-esteem could no longer be in shambles if I chose to hate art. So I did. I used to see following Jesus in this way. I sure wasn’t good at doing all of those “Christian things”, so I tried really hard and I failed.
I just wanted to be good enough to impress God, but I was so often the kid with a 3-legged dinosaur kind of faith.
I just…sucked at the whole faith thing.
At some point failure will burn you out, make you feel guilty, and then whisper lies saying,
“You are incompetent.”“You can’t do this.”
“You aren’t as good as everyone else.”
I’m starting to learn, though. I think I always missed a key element of art: we all express our art in different ways. I may be a terrible sketch artist or painter. (I have ruined enough canvases to prove it).
Here’s the thing, though, there are still canvases I can paint through the art of speaking or writing. You might make something beautiful out of the relationships you make with the people you work with, by building houses that people will inhabit and thrive in for decades to come, or by giving your time, energy, and money in order to make the lives of your neighbors better.
Maybe art is a whole lot bigger and better than I thought it was.
It was easy to hate art when I had a very small understanding of something that is so much bigger than I ever imagined. Art is all around us.
Art is in the words we speak over each other, the wind blowing through the trees, the waves crashing on the beach, the tears we shed on behalf of a dear friend, our work ethic, the songs we sing out of key and at the top of our lungs on long car rides with old friends, and the simple, beautiful thump of each beat of our hearts.
Through some wacky and strange and awkward and fun and sad and ugly and beautiful experiences in my life, I have come to think that God is kind of like art.
It’s easy to not like God or hate Christianity when we have a limited understanding of it. Unfortunately, a lot of people’s understanding of God and Christianity comes from encounters with “Christians” that have left people wanting nothing more to do with the idea of an active God whatsoever.
If I had let the witch who taught my 1st grade art class turn me away from art forever, I would have never known just how beautiful and artistic it is to be alive.
I have a suspicion that whether or not you are a “Christian” or “believer” or whatever else we are calling ourselves these days, God wants to give you a fuller, more expansive, more beautiful, and just all around better picture of who He is.
Will you join me and look for The Artist’s work today?
Prayer
God, will you open my eyes to the works of art you are crafting around me?God, even when I don’t fully grasp or understand you, will you teach me to look to you and only you?Will you give me a deep deep appreciation for the good and beautiful things in this life?
Renew my heart, Lord.
Originally published at www.betterstorycollective.com.
