Excellence

His Name is a Melody Seven, which I restarted as discussed in this journal entry.

Artwork can be considered a reflection of the artist. It can give us a glimpse of what’s going on in their life and heart – expressing joy, bliss, pain or sadness. It can reveal ideology and stances on issues. It also reflects the artist’s skill and understanding of design and medium. It’s very easy for it to become a reflection our own self-worth, and it reflects badly if it doesn’t turn out exactly as we thought it would. And so, we become obsessed – obsessed with getting the colours just right, obsessed with shapes looking how we’d expect. We can even become obsessed with pleasing God and our art reflecting Him well. We become obsessed with perfection. We become consumed by perfection.

Striving for perfection is a form of performance. Performance comes out of a desire for acceptance and recognition which can easily seep into our worship. It is directly rooted in our worth, or more specifically, our lack of belief about our worth.

Ask yourself these questions (these is taken from previous post I’ve written, if you answer yes to any of this, please go check out the post and follow the questions for Jesus):

1.    Do you feel the pressure to perform in order to please God or others?

2.    Do you feel like you don’t measure up to people’s expectations?

3.    Do you feel worthless when people criticize you?

4.    Do you talk negatively to yourself?

5.    Do you compare yourself to others?

(Questions modified from "Cultivating Kingdom Creativity" by Theresa Dedmon, 2009.)

Your self-worth and confidence are directly rooted in your belief in what Jesus thinks about you, and that stems from realizing your worth to Him. Worth is the measurement of sacrifice we assign to things that hold value to us. To Jesus, you hold so much value, that He decided you were worth dying for. That’s a weighty thought. Read it again: Jesus saw so much value in you that He decided you were worth dying for. Dwell on that for a moment and let it sink it. It's sobering, isn’t it?

If He was willing to die for us, who are we to call ourselves worthless? Ugly? Useless? A failure? Who are we to devalue what Jesus died for? Furthermore, if He did all that before we were even born and could do anything to please Him, why do we feel the need to perform for Him?

In my art ministry, at my church, one of our values is excellence versus performance. That means we believe that God delights in us as His children, so we have no need to perform or strive for His approval. Instead, we give Him our absolute all and allow Him to breathe on it supernaturally, making it perfect and complete. This is the Spirit of Excellence.

Excellence

In Mark 12:41-44, we find the story about the widow who could only tithe a few pennies. She had nothing compared to the rich people giving their tithe. She was living in poverty yet gave generously anyway. What did Jesus say of her? “(She) has put more into the treasury than all the others.” (NIV).

Let’s take a moment and ponder this statement. The lesson here is so important that Jesus called His disciples to Him to point it out. It seems so simple, and probably something we’ve heard many times, but we shouldn’t ignore it. Two small copper coins can’t pay for very much at all. Compared to the cost of running the Temple, that probably didn’t mean much. However, it wasn’t the amount, it was her heart posture that made her gift worth more than all the others. (Let’s also not ignore the fact that she gave all she had to live on. The law only required a tenth, but she gave everything… and God noticed.)

Excellence from God’s perspective is measured by the position of your heart. Why are you doing what you are doing? Who is it for?

God isn’t interested in you performing for love. God doesn’t care if your colours don’t go together or if your lines aren’t perfect. He doesn’t care if the layout of your work is unbalanced or sloppy. He cares that you gave to Him out of love.

Is all this to say that we shouldn’t grow and become better? By no means! Part of worship is giving God your best. I think it’s important to practice and get better, but it must come from a healthy place. It needs to be done out of intimacy because intimacy is what protects us from performance. In intimacy, you can be vulnerable with no shame. There is no fear of losing the relationship. There’s no doubt of the other’s love for you and your love for them. You don’t act for love; you act because of love. It’s natural for insecurities to arise in intimacy, but that isn’t something we should be afraid or ashamed of. When those insecurities arise, you are given the opportunity to deal with them with someone who loves you and wants you to become the best you you can be.

So, invite God into your practice. Go ahead and ask the Lord how He wants you to grow. Ask Him for resources, ask Him for strategies, ask Him for a plan. This requires your obedience which is another element of excellence.

When I started out creating prophetically, I never had a plan and went into all my paintings blind. I had no idea what the outcome would be; God wouldn’t give me one. He would only give me a colour and a starting point. Not all those paintings are excellent from a worldly perspective. My technique needed work and my understanding of what made a design good needed work. But that wasn’t the point. The point was learning to submit to Him and follow His voice.

Practicing and refining your craft is a good thing when done from a healthy place of intimacy. One of my paintings for His Name is a Melody I restarted because I wasn’t pleased with it. I didn’t want to give God something I could do better. Even though we planned the painting together, I made some design choices that didn’t look great and weren’t working together. I repainted it, not because I was ashamed of what people would think, but because I knew I could give God better. I’m at a place where my knowledge of my craft and my skill is enough (and still growing) to be able to create designs that are generally pleasing to the eye. However, I am submitted to the Lord and doing everything out of a heart of worship, so it was safe for me to start over. Plus, I asked the Lord and felt permission to go again.

Worship can still be done as performance. We easily fall into performance when we are criticizing our own work or others work, when we are worrying about what people are thinking, when we want people to be impressed, or even if we feel the need to perform for God’s love. If you ever find yourself performing instead of worshipping, simply take a step back, repent and turn your attention to Him. Let Him fill your senses, let Him fill your thoughts and your emotions, let Him fill all your attention. Stay right there until you feel a release to go at it again.

Consider this, if artwork can be considered a reflection of the artist, and our artwork is done in partnership with God, who does the artwork really reflect? Kingdom art is not performance art. This is why it is so important that we understand our value to God when we create. We are not doing this to perform. The purpose of our art is to reveal Jesus. Yes, your artwork will still reflect you since you are the voice God is speaking through. It may reflect issues going on in your life, it may reflect things the Lord is revealing to you, it may reflect testimonies, warfare, and intercession. It may even reflect the type of art you gravitate towards, your style, your skill, and your personality. However, when all these things are submitted to God and we create in partnership with God, our artwork becomes an expression of God through us. We become a reflection of Christ.