"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
~Hebrews 12:1-2
The phrase "throwing off of everything that hinders" has a weight to it that I've only recently considered. I've been able to quote this verse for years, but it remains new and the Lord shows me new ways to live within it. By definition the throwing off of something that hinders means the abandoning of that thing. It isn't like throwing off only to pick it up again, in Greek it would mean to put something away and the intention was permanent. It's been on my mind lately because in the recent weeks trough God's grace and leading I have found this new devotion to the Lord, His work and His word that quite honestly I have never before experienced. With that increasing spiritual vitality the need to rid my life of “second things” the things that hinder my relationship with Christ is becoming an increasing conviction.
One of those “second things” is something that will surprise a lot of people, but it is something that for me can and has at times become a serious idol. Art. Out of all of the things that compete with my devotion and attention to God art is the thing that has a death grip. Most people I know, know me as an artist. Generally I'm introduced to someone as "This Amanda, she's an artist" which is true. I am an artist, and I'm good at it. However being an artist brings with it this strange dynamic between your life in art and your life in everything else. Being an artist and a Christian kind of turns things in all sorts of different directions and things can get really confusing really fast.
Serious artists have a tendency to abandon themselves to their work, everything becomes art and if anything interferes with art you abandon it. It's more than a passion, it's an obsession. Vincent Van Gogh was one of these people, he worked tirelessly for years on one painting after another, he abandoned his faith and was quoted as saying "you can live without God, but you cannot live without painting". He never sold a single painting in his lifetime, and he killed himself at age 36. Today he is the most renowned artist in the world, only after he is not around to experience or benefit from it. He gave everything to art; his money, his meals (he almost starved to death more than once) his sleep and every scrap of energy he had, and art gave him nothing back. Art no matter how much starving artists everywhere wish to deny it is just a thing. It is not alive, it cannot give you any lasting meaning or purpose and one day this too will perish.
I am very much an artist, and it is a great blessing to me most of the time. The gift God gave me in art enables me to see things in ways that friends who aren't artists don't see them and I have this gift to be able to see beauty where beauty seldom comes. However left to its own devices it is also a source of pride, contention and a gateway for all sorts of sinful thoughts and attitudes. Because of my abilities as an artist I have noticed myself taking liberties that until recent weeks I have been unwilling to admit as being sinful and grievous to the Holy Spirit within me.
I am not by any means saying that I will never pick up a paint brush again, after all it was God who gave me the gift and the gift was meant to honor Him. In His holy hands Art is an amazing and beautiful thing, God is an artist if ever there was one. But I will not be pursuing art itself as a lifestyle, a definition of myself or a way to win the respect and love of others including Christ (which I have been guilty of doing). I am taking a serious break from it, until the Lord gives me the strength and humility to use it purely for His glory and His purposes. Someone once said to me that “as an artist you cannot be truly happy unless you are creating” I disagree, I am an artist but I am a Christian first. As a Christian I cannot be truly happy without abiding totally in Christ, abandoning everything for Him and His cause, and it doesn’t matter whether art is involved at all.
There are several other “second things” that need some serious pruning or throwing off in my life including but not limited too certain relationships, entertainment, and even my furthering education. The Lord will help me to learn to run in a way so that I might win, but without the throwing off and abandoning of things that hinder I will be panting and out of breath long before I reach the finish line of this great race. Someone will inevitably chide me for this, but there is a general attitude among a good percent of the believers I know that we needn’t sacrifice anything for our faith. I’m starting to think that this is strictly an American idea, believers in other parts of the world sacrifice everything, including their freedom and even their lives for Christ and are far better Christians and have more joy in their lives than I and most other Christians I know.
Cutting the straps of the weights that hold me back isn’t something that I’ll be able to do overnight, alone or without the all of the grace and humility Christ can provide me, and I’ll probably wince at the sound of them rolling off my back and hitting the ground behind me, but in order to run truly free into eternal life it is something that must be done. The reward is worth the sacrifice thousands of times over. No matter what the sacrifice requires, even to my life.
“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life”
~Matthew 19:29
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