Jun 16 2010
Creative expression is the lifeblood of our culture and an essential part of worship. That is one of the values that we hold at our church (how can you NOT value art when you live in this city?)
For someone like me, who appreciates art and music, but doesn’t necessarily live and breathe it like so many here, that value can be a bit harder to embrace. I definitely support it, but it’s hard for me to see how painting a picture is actually a form of worshipping God.
This past weekend I was at a conference at a church in Brea. They have a man there who is an artist and will often paint pictures on stage while the pastor is teaching. I’ve heard of some other churches doing this type of thing, and experienced it once at an Easter service at RockHarbor, but otherwise haven’t experienced it before.
As I watched him paint, I was reminded of my experience of several people painting one huge picture at that RockHarbor service. Both times, I sat watching them paint, wondering what the heck was being created. I assumed at the end it would have to make some kind of sense, but in the process it just looked like a big mess and a bad art piece.
This person in particular was painting on 9 cardboard boxes, stacked in rows of 3. The more and more he painted, the less sense it made as nothing seemed ordered or to be making a picture of any type.
As soon as he finished the painting, he began shifting the boxes around and re-stacking them. What I hadn’t realized was, as he was working, he was painting upside-down, backwards, and out of order. As he moved the boxes around, a picture of Jesus on the cross began to take shape. The admiration and surprise of the crowd was audible, shocked to see the picture not only come into view, but realizing he was just that talented. He’d painted a complete picture upside down and backward, yet made everything match up somehow in the end.
It was then I realized how artistic expression can convey so much that words often can’t. They can take words and ideas and put feet to them in a way that saturates our heart much more than they would have otherwise. Which, I believe is why the art of movie-making in this city is such a passion for so many. Artists can express ideas and values in ways that stick with people and make them memorable and relatable.
His painting, as well as the one I’d seen at RockHarbor, conveyed such an important piece of truth to me. That’s how God usually works. He’s painting a massive picture, both for our personal lives as well as in a grander scheme of our community, cities, and the world.
I tend to think I know much better than God. I think I know what the painting is supposed to look like, and I want it to make sense. So I tell him how he should be painting, what the process should look like, and what the outcome should be. I’m sure I have the best scenario in my mind and expect Him to make it work my way.
But that’s like me watching this man paint on the boxes and telling him, “whoa, hold on, this is not going to work. What does that box have to do with the one next to it? That looks terrible. You need to paint this way, and put this here and use these colors. Because this mess makes no sense. Come on, learn how to paint.” He would probably tell me to shut up and leave him alone because I have no idea what I’m talking about. He knows his vision, he knows how to paint the picture he has in mind, and he has a genius method to his madness. I just can’t see it until it’s complete.
Isn’t that how God works? In the process of hard decisions, trials, surrender, confusion, we think God’s being mean or ignoring us or making terrible choices for our lives. But when we are much further down the road and look back at our journey, we often get the chance to see what God was doing and why. And it’s usually SO much better than anything we could have created.
God is constantly painting a beautiful art piece in and through our lives. He has the huge vision. He knows the end. He has the perfect method, even when it seems mad. Like watching an artist, whose process may look messy and lack purpose, we must learn to trust that it will all make sense in the end.
