I live in a community where we all have mailboxes at the foot of the hill, and a few days ago my list of errands included picking up the mail. I was focused on my to-do list, and seeing a woman ahead of me, I steered around her. Then as I got in my car, I sensed God telling me, Look again. You know her. That’s when I realized I had just passed a friend without saying hello. Next time I see her, I’ll have to apologize.
How often have you looked at something or someone and not seen? Maybe you’ve lost something, looked everywhere for it, and then when you finally found it you realized you had looked at it several times without seeing it.
Jesus addressed this issue when He explained why He taught people in parables:
“Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive; For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’” [Matthew 13:13-15]
It’s a puzzling passage and it brings up a lot of issues, but I want to look at just one: if God has called you to be a Christian artist, He has called you to see.
A few years ago I read Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain. I’ve never been particularly gifted at drawing, but I was surprised to find that as I followed the exercises in the book, I could draw realistically. It takes time I don’t have; I haven’t done anything with it. But I realized that 90% of drawing is seeing.
I had never managed to draw a recognizable portrait because I had never bothered to see. My wife’s face? Start with an oval; add blonde hair with blue eyes; stick in nose and lips. But something in my mind wants to substitute stereotypes for real vision – have you ever seen anyone who has a face that is a perfect oval? And would the features I added really be hers, or would they be a composite drawn from my imagination?
To make a portrait recognizable, I would have to look at the lines and planes that are really there: the highlights and shadows of her cheekbones, the delicate yet elegant line of her nose, the unique double-curve of her lips. Then people would see not just any blonde, but JoAnn.
This is a good start, but seeing goes deeper. After all, a photograph could capture her features, but I might have to take twenty pictures of JoAnn to get one or two that reveal her personality. The portrait I draw likewise must show her personality and not just her looks.
It takes a lot of seeing to draw a portrait! And if anyone can see, God can. The Christian artist has a huge advantage over artists who don’t know God because He who sees the hearts lives in us. He can and will teach us to see as He sees if we ask Him to give us this wisdom.
This is what seeing is all about. And though I’ve written about it in the art of drawing, the principles apply equally in other media and with other senses. An actor has to see the body language and hear the speech patterns of a character. A dancer has to see the movements that convey a mood. A writer has to find the lines that portray a character, not just giving a physical description but also revealing the person’s hopes, fears, and motivations.
If you have asked Jesus to live in your heart, you can expect Him to empower you to see as He sees, to hear as He hears, and to feel as He feels. Ask Him to awaken your perception so your art can release heaven’s vision into the earth.
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