I was challenged today with the idea of a believer's statement. As artists we are taught and encouraged to write artist statements to explain to viewers who we are, what we do and why we do it. Since faith is the epitome of who I am and what drives me I thought I would take Peter's advice and make a believer's statement. “…if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it.” 1 Peter 3:15 In a nutshell…
It doesn’t matter if you were born and raised in a church or spent your whole life outside them, it is all darkness until you have an encounter with the reality of God (not just the idea of Him). We all know people who basically live at church but can’t give or receive grace if it was handed directly to them (it was and is). I bet we know people (myself included) who tried the world’s way of doing things and found out painfully that it doesn’t work and never leads to peace. It comes down to “the good news”. Grace. The reality of grace. The reality that we were purposefully created, set apart, and given a way to experience the Divine that the world can’t give. I will never speculate on how God will sort it all out and frankly, that’s way above my pay grade. I know I experienced it and in one moment I was not the same. Like falling in love for the first time; all those songs on the radio finally make sense! I can’t give perfection but I can trust my source of inspiration to do more than I ever could. Like my artist's statement says: I do my best work when I get out of the way. Something bigger than me gets to shine and that’s the way it should be.