The True Gift

 

Prayer (Light study), 2022

Charcoal on newsprint

18"x24"

Prayer is an awesome gift from God. The Bible tells us in the book of Psalms that God will give us the desires of our hearts (Psalms 37:4 NIV) and Jesus himself promised us that “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” (John 14:14 CSB). As if the ability to ask God anything and everything wasn’t enough, the Good Book ups the ante by reminding us that God can do “immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine!“ (Ephesians 3:20 NIV). Wow! 

For anybody out there who may be feeling a twinge of skepticism right now, I can tell you from empirical experience: God answers prayers. God still preforms miracles. And Paul was totally right, the gift of God’s answers often exceeds what I could have imagined. To me, however, the most mind blowing part of all this is the act of prayer itself. Just think about it for a minute - you have full access to the throne room of the King of Kings. You have the ability to chat with The Creator of the Universe about anything you like… every single moment of your life! We have 24/7, uninhibited, direct communication with God. Is your mind blown yet?  

Blessings and miracles are wonderful but His presence is the true gift. 

This is a beautiful and simple truth… and one that my human mind sometimes has a hard time reconciling with the promises in Psalms 37 and John 14. As much as we may want it to be, prayer is NOT a genie-in-the-lamp type situation. Pastor Mark, the head pastor of my old church, put it rather succinctly when he declared to the entire congregation, “God is not your cosmic Santa Claus.” And why not? you may ask. Why doesn’t God just give me a million dollars? Or the perfect husband? Or the perfect life? There are so very many reasons, and honestly I don’t know them all, but I do know that many of them have to do with the motivation of our hearts.

Last week I had a very sobering reminder of this truth. I had begun building the foundation layer of a lovely cloudscape. The image in my mind was of soft clouds tinted in the barest whispers of violet and gold, that floated softly over a gentle blue sky. It was a pretty little scene in my mind, filled with pastels and relaxation. I mused to myself that the process would be as relaxing as the vision. I constructed the layers in my mind - blue sky, then clouds, then highlights, easy peasy. Just as a side note, this was not the image that I felt I was being led to create that week. It was, however, the least complicated choice and the allure of a simple process and an “easy win” won me over. I rendered the pale blue sky and was eager to lay in my clouds the following day. 

Without any preparation, I quickly mixed up an array of cloud colors on my palette. They were close to what I had envisioned but just not hitting the mark somehow, then it dawned on me “I know, I should pray!” What should have come to my mind was that I had completely neglected to pray over my session. I didn’t thank God for my talent, or my tools. I had not yet praised Him for His ever faithful help or for the spectacular beauty of His creation which inspired me. I had not invited God into my process, or even my day. But this painting was going to be a slam dunk and all I needed was a little help with my colors. I briefly took a knee and quickly recited “I know that what I do without you is nothing compared to what I can do with you. Help me mix these colors and guide my choices. God, bless and establish the work of my hands… and I know you will, because you always do.” This quickie prayer doesn’t seem all that bad, at first glance, but just typing it right now makes me cringe because the place that it was coming from was not good.  What resulted next was also not good. 

I loaded up my brush with the “close enough” colors and laid in where the clouds should live. They didn’t land quite where I had intended, but I pushed through. I consoled myself with the idea that it was the softness of the clouds that I had been attracted to so I grabbed a large blending brush and hurriedly crisscrossed over the fresh paint. The brush in my hand dragged awkwardly across the canvas. Upon examination, my base layer was not completely dry and the still tacky paint clung to the  bristles and impeded any sort of fluid movement. I pushed through. So it’s not quite cured, I thought to myself, a little resistance is no biggie. I worked the clouds harder. Hard enough, in fact, that soon they lost most of their color variation. I pushed through. When I stepped back to examine the damage, I noticed a random stroke had somehow landed right in the center of my piece, right smack in the highlighted focal point. I grabbed the first thing I could find, somewhat frantically, and scrubbed the collateral damage of my angry brush strokes. Little pilly bits of paper towel stuck to the center of my painting. I stopped. 

So how did everything go downhill so fast? It all comes back to the heart and the motivation behind my cringe worthy prayer. You see, I knew logically in my mind that prayer would help my situation but all of the requests in my prayer came from a selfish place. I might as well have been saying “God, sorry I totally forgot You but I’m in a big hurry. Do X, Y, and Z, and do it fast because I want to get to the end part where I feel good and satisfied with myself. Yada, yada, bless the work of my hands, thanks in advance for being a good sport.” Yikes. See what I mean? I was not painting with God, I was painting for myself and asking God to do the heavy lifting as an after thought. I had forgotten the first and most important part of Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4 ESV).

Fortunately, I serve a patient and forgiving God. In the words of my friend Tina, “we’re all learning” and thankfully God knows that. God knows that we can, and will, make mistakes that’s why He gives us the ability to repent. I was disappointed that I had messed up my “easy” painting and disappointed that I had blown my imaginary deadline. But most of all, I was disappointed when I realized exactly why. I humbled my heart and repented. 

A few days later, I decided to get back up on the proverbial horse. This time, I elected to attempt the more difficult of the choices that had been floating around my mind. The image was actually based on an idea that God had given me several years ago. Ironically, this particular picture was about the way God answers prayers. Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor? 

Prayer (Initial Concept sketch), 2018 

 

Right out of the gate, I made the conscious decision that I would approach this session without any agendas, or deadlines, and definitely without a grocery list of “honey-dos” for God. I prayed without any sort of time limit, apologizing to God for neglecting our friendship. I told Him, “I don’t even care how this piece turns out, I just want to spend time with you. Please come draw with me.” After I found a nice playlist of worship music by Charity Gayle, I began a simple warm up gesture. My mind floated away from the work of my hands and I got lost in the music. It didn’t take long before the tangible presence of the Lord washed over me. By the third song, I had Holy Spirit goosebumps all up and down my arms and was so overcome by His presence that I was reduced to tears. I didn’t want to stop, I didn’t want to switch to my final medium, I just wanted to stay in His presence. Two days of drawing passed and the warmup gesture blossomed into a light study. This is the piece that we made together.

This charcoal study is just a small glimpse of the final incarnation to come. Please stay tuned to see the finished draft of Prayer. As excited as I am to see how the finished piece comes together, I’m even more excited to get back in the studio and get back into His presence! I can’t wait to see how God will speak to me next time ...and to share it with you all!

Love you guys, have a great week :).

P.S. Never heard of Charity Gayle? Never fear! Here is a sample of her incredible worship music.

https://youtu.be/dhU-Omwg2rU