Where does God’s presence look like in the life of a Christian artist?
In John 14:21, Jesus made it clear that He wants to manifest your presence in your life. Here’s how:
He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. (John 14:21)
The more we act on the words of God, the more He will make His presence felt in our lives. This suggests that if you can braid your art and God’s commandments together like the strands of a rope, you will have many encounters with Him. What might these encounters look like?
1. Moments of inspiration. These are the moments that make the difference between whether your art is self-expression or a voice for the heart of God. Only as God opens His heart to you can your art express Him.
It may be that He speaks to you, or it may be that He simply reaffirms His love. Maybe His presence moves you with compassion. These are moments when God deposits something in you that slowly but surely works itself out in your art.
2. A sense of laboring together with Him. Sometimes you will sense God working with you as you create. It can be a dialog between you and Him, or it can happen without words: you’ll sense God himself playing complicated guitar riffs through your hands, or pages of text will almost seem to write themselves as your hands fly at the keyboard to try to keep up with the words as they come to you. These are rich moments of sensing that Christ in you is working with you and through you as you stumble into the flow of His creativity.
3. The sense that your work has become worship. The very process of creativity can become an act of devotion. Colossians 3:17 commands, “whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.” In other words, you can cultivate a relationship with God in which your work and your marketing all become works of love. This kind of communing with God is a venue in which you will experience His manifest presence.
4. Divine appointments. Romans 8:28 says all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. The call is up to Him, but the love is up to you. If your life work – expressed through art – is to love Him, you will experience many divine appointments as God Himself opens doors for you. These open doors are another manifestation of His presence.
5. A sense of mission. As you surrender your life and your art to God, He will intensify your calling as an artist. Christian artists are missionaries, and God will let you know whom He is sending you to and how you can make a greater impact. This sense of purpose and focus is yet another way God will manifest His presence in your life.
Finally, it all comes back to receiving His commandments and keeping them – not just a slavish obedience, but a loving sense of cherishing His words: pondering them, meditating on them, seeing the heart of God in them, committing ourselves to them, and finally acting on them. More about all of this in The School → Encounter God.
But I’m sure this short article doesn’t list all the ways God will manifest His presence in your life. Post a comment, telling how God has shown Himself in your own life and you art.
