Celebrate God’s Works

Use your work to celebrate God’s work in His people. Testimonies awaken and nourish faith. But use the classic maxim for writers — “Show, don’t tell.”  There’s a way to tell a testimony in an evangelistic service, but there’s another way to show a testimony via the arts.

How do you show a testimony?

One of the classic issues in a testimony is a distinct before-and-after aspect to the story.  It begins with a need, then God comes on the scene, then the need is met.  This can be the story of a sinner who finds redemption in Christ, or of the aimless disciple who finds direction, or of the faithful minister who toils in obscurity until God speaks and launches a new and more successful ministry.

The arts can portray these scenes as a series, whether painted in several panels, portrayed as a play in three acts, or a song with several verses.  This takes skill, but it might take even more skill to capture a single moment of illumination or decision.

If we have spent a lot of time in church, we might be tempted to make our message crystal clear.  A classic example is “Praying Hands”, a painting that has inspired countless Christians to pray and no doubt has led people to turn to Christ.  Bible bookstores are full of works that send an unambiguous message.

Much Christian art uses text to make its message clear.  Calligraphy links text and imagery to communicate Bible truth.  Some of us therefore, seeking art that conveys peace, would look for a song with lyrics about peace or a landscape with a scripture about peace printed on it.

But what happens if we leave out the words?  It’s more challenging to convey peace without text.  What kind of image or music or dance would portray peace?

Or could you create a piece of writing that conveys peace without  using the word “peace” or any of its synonyms?  This comes back to the maxim, “Show, don’t tell.”  The technique would call for a scene that shows a person who has peace, and a rigid determination not to tell the reader, “Jason’s heart was still.”

Our art will become much more powerful as we learn to show our message – even if we will later add text to make it unambiguous to our audience.

Use rich contrast.  Just as a testimony has a strong before-and-after element, even a moment of choice is a moment of discerning how sharply two paths differ.

Show mixed feelings. A person making a choice is tugged in two different directions, and both tugs are compelling.  Display the struggle.

Explore different perspectives. The person before and after receiving Christ will see life differently.  Show this change of view.

It takes extraordinary skill to show these things clearly yet subtly.  Take time to soak in God’s presence and ask Him for ideas that will enable you to portray His works in His people.  These ideas are part of the wisdom James 1:5-6 exhorts us to seek:

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.  But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.

If you want to use your art to extol God’s works in the earth, He will give you wisdom.  Often it’s a matter of finding a metaphor that will show what He has done.

My wife found one.  She dug up samples of her work before she knew Christ, and the contrast between her work then and now is evident.  See for yourself; she’s posted her testimony at http://diaryofanexorcism.com.  A picture is worth a thousand words.

Stan Smith  ::   © 2008, GospelSmith  ::  www.GospelSmith.com

The Faith Worldview

Let faith shape your worldview.  Much of your kingdom expression in the arts will happen unconsciously; but because Jesus lives in you, He will work through you as you simply do what you need to do.

The gifts of the Spirit can work unconsciously – I learned this in a ministry context, but then have learned that the same principle holds true in artistic inspiration.

When I was a young pastor seeking spiritual gifts, I imagined that God would always release them in two steps:  first He would give me something, then I would pass it on.  In time, I learned that, as often as not, God would give me something so naturally that I wouldn’t even be aware it had happened.  I would simply move in a supernatural level of inspiration as I lived my daily life.

I looked for scripture to explain what was happening, and concluded that it was simply Christ in me.  If He lives in you, you can expect the same.  He will speak through you, sing through you, write through you, paint through you…

The Bible gives many examples of people who experienced the two steps, but just as many where people did what came naturally and stumbled accidentally into a higher level of inspiration.  The same God will do the same works in you.

In other words, there will be times when you will want to pray for inspiration.  You’ll want to ask God, how can I better communicate my faith through my art?  You’ll need to ask Him for wisdom in your marketing and packaging.  But at other times, God will work through you without your having to ask.  How can you position yourself for this sort of divine activity?  Here are a few keys.

Cultivate friendship with God. Pray.  Worship.  Surrender.  Soak.  Develop a relationship with Him where you truly enjoy spending time with Him.

Practice the presence of God. Make it a habit to take Him with you when you buy groceries, eat meals, or tidy the yard. “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” He promises.  Respond to this promise by appreciating His presence wherever you go and whatever you’re doing.

Let Him transform you. Romans 12:1-2 give the recipe for deep transformation:

…Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…

It starts with surrender.  Give your whole life to Him again and again, holding nothing back.  As Luke 6:38 says, “Give, and it will be given to you.”  The more you give yourself to God, the more of Himself He will give to you.

Surrender leads to a renewed mind, and this will cause you to become less and less conformed to the world.

It works from the inside out.  We don’t become creative just by saying, “I’ve got to think outside the box.”  The box is conformity to the word we live in – its materialism, its greed, its assumption that there’s nothing more to live for than sex.  Let God change your thinking, and your work will stand out.

And this is one of the ways God will bring kingdom inspiration into your life.  You won’t always have to have an “aha!” moment.  Sometimes you’ll be in a hurry to finish an assignment and won’t even have time to hear from God about it – but because Jesus lives in you, He will do the work through you.  Then later you will look back and see His signature on what you have produced.

The more you linger in His presence and let Him work in your heart, the more you will experience this kind of inspiration.

Stan Smith  ::  © 2008, GospelSmith  ::  www.GospelSmith.com

Enlarge Your Expectancy

Do all you can to build your faith.  How do you expect God to work in and through your art?  Enlarge your expectancy and make room for more.

God often calls us to think big while we’re living small.  There was Abraham, a childless man who was growing older while feeling vulnerable as he, his servants, and his flocks and herds dwelt as foreigners in the land of Canaan.  But God challenged, “Lift up your eyes…number the stars, if you can… so shall your seed be.”

A thousand impossibilities must have crossed his mind.  “At my age? At Sarah’s age?  How can this be?”

Or there were Joseph’s dreams as he labored first in slavery and later in prison.  His family would come and bow down before him?  It must have seemed impossible that he would ever see them again.  How would thy ever find him?  And even when he was freed from prison, it was only to serve as Pharaoh’s right-hand-man.  Even then, he was not free to go and look for them.

In a world where it’s not what you know – it‘s who you know, you may feel as foreign as Abraham and as unable to multiply your influence.  Or you may feel as confined as Joseph by the narrowness of your talents, training, and opportunities.

Then in the midst of impossibility, God starts talking about a big dream.

It can feel like a cruel joke, but it isn’t.  Impossible circumstances are the greenhouse in which God’s promises grow.  And when they do, it’s clear that only God can have brought His dreams to fruition.

Romans 4:16 calls Abraham the father of all who live by faith.  And this suggests that we all will have a challenge like his as God speaks promise into our impossibilities.  For Abraham it found fulfillment through the family.  For Joseph it happened in the political and economic realm, and for other children of Abraham it will happen in the world of arts, culture, and media.

Treasure the dreams God gives you.  They are the language of kingdom purpose.

It’s hard to keep your vision alive when everything around you shouts “Impossible!” And it’s hard to think big when common sense reasons, “Think small.”

The answer is to be as faithful to God as you know how where you are.  Go through the doors He opens for you.  If He gives you an assignment, do your best with it.  And while this is all happening, keep meditating on the dream He has given you.

You don’t know how to get from here to there.  Psalm 119:105 says God’s word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.  The lamp is like a flashlight, illuminating the next step or two.  The light to our path is a distant light on the horizon.

There is a lot of darkness between our goal, but as long as we move towards the light to our path we will not wander aimlessly in circles.

Faith isn’t a lasso that can capture God and force Him to do our bidding.  It’s trusting Him enough to take the next one or two steps in front of us, even when we can’t see the whole path to our destination.

A warm relationship with God will give you the light to take those one or two steps.  For now, you may wonder if you will ever manage to sell a hundred dollars’ worth of your sketches in a single week.  But as a child of Abraham, you are destined to bless the nations.

So take the next step, but as you do, lift your eyes to notice the distant light on the horizon.  Keep taking one step at a time towards your dreams.

Stan Smith  ::  © 2008, GospelSmith  ::  www.GospelSmith.com