The Purpose of Art

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

Choose Your Medium 

If we had to choose, just one thing to do that would make us feel happiness, and live a fulfilled life, what would it be?

Would you race cars, or climb mountains? Would you write novels, or sing ballads? What is that thing that creates passion and fire in your belly? Everyone has a "thing". For me, it is writing. For you it may be having children, or bringing awareness to a social need. You may have the talent and the desire to become a great visual artist.

Your medium may be emerging, or it may be set in stone, but what you sculpt out of your life is what we want to focus on now.

Create or Stagnate 

Can you be happy in a nine to five with demands and schedules and a cubical? Will putting your kids in daycare and spending eight to 16 hours a day with people you barely like get you where or what you want?

What matters? The nine to five, the hustle and bustle of it all? Or the moments that grab our gut and draw our heart strings? The works of pure perfection that take our breath away?

We need novels that leave us breathless with sobbing because we lived in the moments and spaces between the lines written there. Music that grabs us and shakes us to our core. We are creative people that need creative outlets because we long to express more.

We want to be more than the grey automatons society tries to turn us into, we long for color and depth, and breadth and vision. We long for singularity of voice and attention for our endeavors. We want more than pats on the back: we want someone to see us.

See us. To know us like no one else.

What We Long For

We look for that fulfillment everywhere. It was not found in the pursuit of pleasure. Pleasure lasts for a season. Even our art lacked real complete joy. Because there was no reason to it. There was no drive, We created and wrote, and sculpted, and sang for the sake of doing so. To say we were different, to draw attention to our pain, our creativity, to our expressions of art, and because of our glory seeking - we missed where the real glory lies.

There was no value there because there was no foundation. Lost in the wind, being blown away by talent alone is not enough. Art, real art, must say something. Art must be about the discovery of who we are. Individuals that need something and someone greater than ourselves.

We need Inspiration. 

When some artist look for Inspiration, they look to nature, and think, "this must be the meaning of it all". Then some look for Inspiration in the stars and say, "the universe must hold the key." Others look to themselves and spiral into a vacuous self-obsession.

Why not look for Inspiration in the One who made the beauty of nature. Who fashioned the stars with His very hands? The One who is a Master Potter, whose very workmanship is you.

"God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to live our lives doing." Ephesians 2:10 NCV

Great Art is not just beautiful, but it reflects back to us the pain, the joy, the beauty of all we are, and all our Creator is. It shows our brokenness and it inspires us to create moments of peace, and joy, and love. Bottled up, jarred,. smeared on canvas, carved from stone or written in pen and ink: our lives are meant to reflect the glory of God. 

If our lives feel incomplete, perhaps it is because we have, for too long, worshiped the creation, rather than the Creator. When we change this our Art becomes an expression of love and service rather than a self-absorbed debacle. 

So, forget the different drummer, and stop leaning on what you have always thought was driving you to create and remember that we were made in His image and He made us to create. He gave the gifts and the talents. 

What are you doing with them?  

Subscribe 

Like what you read? Want to read more? Sign up for our FREE newsletter and never miss another blog post. If you sign up today you will receive a link to my FREE children's eBook, The Gardener and the Sapling: A Modern Parable, your's to keep and share with your loved ones. Join our mailing list and you will get exclusive email content that never makes the blog. Sign up today by clicking the link below.

Subscribe to our newsletter

A Year in the Spiritual Life Review

Let's Look Back

This year, with its tragedies and its triumphs has been a year of discovery. I have looked at myself, at the world, and at the Word. I have grown so much. 

This year I have begun teaching young girls about God, I started this blog, I volunteered at my church, I joined the worship team, and I wrote a book. This year I discovered so much about myself and my purpose. I hope I have helped you discover something too. You and I were made for more than the everyday ordinary...we were made to live the extraordinary. 

Our everyday lives: the run to the mall, drop the kids off to school, grocery shopping lives do not stop, but there is more to life than blindly driving from point a to point b. In the in between moments there is opportunity. There are chances to see God in others, to share Jesus with the wounded, and to bring light to the darkness. 

A year ago I was a bitter smoker walking around with a chip on my shoulder. I was unpleasant and thought I was funny, when I was really only cruel and cold. 

Surrendering to God changed all of it. 

I am not perfect...at all! There are days I mess up. Things I still need to let God have. As long as there is breath in me there will be flaws too. But God is faithful to work on us, to love on us, to change and perfect us. Why? He does all this because we are His workmanship. 

Imagine yourself as a lump of clay, waiting for something to happen. As a lump of clay we get rained on, we dry out in the sun, and we sit there....doing nothing, letting life happen to us. Until we get up on the potter's wheel. 

When we put ourselves on the potter's wheel we submit to His molding and making us. It is a trans-formative experience and it is not always comfortable. Yet, somehow, we go from ordinary vessels to extraordinary vessels of honor in the Master Potter's hands. Now, we have a purpose. We have been made for something. The potential was always there, but now we are becoming. In Christ there is fullness of joy, and part of that joy is knowing we have a purpose in this world. 

I know that God has done some extraordinary things this year. Next year is already shaping up to be equally amazing, if not more so. Soon, I will be leaving the states to go on my first missions trip to Guatemala. I will continue to write and I am praying that this year will bring some wonderful adventure. I pray this, because I believe God loves a good story, and my life is just another story written by Him. 

Join the Conversation

How has your life changed in the last year and what are you hoping for in 2013?