“March on with courage, my soul!” (Judges 5:21b NLT)
I have a lot of ideas, but I don’t always capture them as often as I’d like, nor is it humanly possible to practice them all. Sometimes all my ideas scare me.
Like this idea to present GOD+ART in a way that communicates my heart to God AND to the readers of this blog.
What was I thinking?
This morning, I have been talking to my soul. Like the writer in Judges, I need to remember that courage comes from witnessing God’s deliverance. So, I march on with this idea to share how I “see” and “hear” God through this practice of His presence while I make ART.
Before Brother Lawrence became the famous monk, who practiced an awareness of God’s presence while doing menial chores,”he was a great awkward fellow who broke everything.”
I feel like that “awkward fellow” today. I’m trying to tell you about this practice of ART that draws me closer to GOD, but I can’t tell you about it, because it’s an experience. So all my telling comes to you broken and halted, laced with insecurity and fear. Will you like my idea? Will you like my ART? Will you like me?
Such are the musings of my soul, in much need of God’s love. And it is His love that infuses me with courage to spill out this process here, hoping that somehow my experience will whet your appetite or rekindle your love for God.
I long for a shared experience, so here I am offering my process for you to see. (And my process is a very intimate part of myself, just as yours is for you, if you care to admit it.)
With words. With ideas. With a collage that was hard at first, but offered me a space to wrestle with ideas. The images become my metaphor for harnessing ideas, letting them mature in their own time.
The finished collage came in stages today. I started with several random magazine images, then some purple watercolor washed over the page, and then added some scribbles of phrases and words. (To read more about the collage process, click here.)
To define the images and words, I kept adding dark colors to highlight important themes. I didn’t really see how the red dress fit in, so I made a leaf stamp, stamped it with black ink, cut it out and wrote some more words to express my intention to make ART in God’s presence, even if I do feel scared.
(I like how the idea of a leaf presented itself into the collage. It was the element where I wrote out my fears to God. Click here for a tutorial on how to make this stamp.)
And here’s the end result…a call to “Practice Ideas with Courage”
The white writing on the leaf was my confession of fear, which later I wrote the word “practice” over the top of them. Practicing God’s presence gives me courage to practice the ideas that He invites me to realize.
Do your your ideals about LOVE ever become obstacles to just loving someone? Do you have a check-list of “must do things” in order to have a fulfilling relationship with God? Do you ever just want to pitch that list and enjoy His presence?
souldare 
I love a dialogue. Be the first to start a discussion!