How do you do what you do?

After live paintings gigs at conferences or churches, people often ask me how do you do what you do?  You know when you answer a question and it doesn’t seem like it’s the right answer, and every time after that that someone asks you the same question, you answer a bit different trying to find the right answer?  I’ve been trying to find the right answer to this question. Something that depicts really what’s involved with live painting. 

 

It’s to not run away from God.

 

That’s what my job really is. It’s to not run away from God. It’s to be honest. To be honest with Him, with myself, and what the work is and where the true nature of the power comes from.  Look, there are plenty of people who can do “christian” things in front of people that have no basis in prayer and listening to the spirit.  We see this all the time. We see people saying one thing, and low and behold, later on we find out that they are soliciting male prostitutes or hoarding money.  It’s a phoniness that we see all too often.  And we’re sick of phoniness.  We hate it.  I hate it. It seems that number one complaint about “Christians” is that they are a bunch of phonies and hypocrites.  I find myself agreeing too.

 

For me, yes… I have developed artistic skills.  I practice all the time and I’m at a spot where i know what kind of things i can do and what time limits i can have.  I know my materials. I know the elements of paint and how they work.  I know all this from years of practice.  But the poignancy of the subject matter, the stirring of hearts, the movement of the spirit…. this is all up to Him.  And it can only happen through obedience. Our secret unsaid prayers can frighteningly look like “God give me what I want but i don’t want to have to be close to you.”  We are all prodigals.

 

That’s why I’m so thankful that the nature of this work is an interdependence on Him.  I was praying before an event recently, and i said a prayer that sounded something like this, “thank you for giving me a calling that keeps me close to you.  Thank you for leading me into something that i can not do on my own, but something that i can only do if i’m close to you.  I often want to run.  But you have kept me close.  Thank you for your mercy.”  There is great joy in being close to Jesus. He could care less what we did if we are far from him.  Trust me, i know.  He kept me in obscure hidden places for years to teach me that no matter what i do, at the core of life has to be a deep love and closeness with Him.  Always, always, always… the core of where he wants us to be is abiding in Him.  From there everything else comes out of. What does it matter if someone gains the whole world, yet loses his soul?

 

So that’s what i do.  I don’t run away from God.  I stay in the light and let honesty rule… which includes a lot of repentance and forgiveness. It’s a really awkward place to be honest. But from that spot, I get to experience the restoring, enlightening work of the Spirit.  And there is nothing else that I’d rather be doing.

~ by scotterickson on May 6, 2009.