Develop Your Prophetic Voice through Art - Part 2

Beholding His Beauty
It’s often been said, “you become what you behold”. The more you behold Him in worship and through His Word, gazing upon His beauty, learning to hear His voice and dreaming with Him, the more prophetic your creativity becomes. It’s a natural outflow of your relationship with the Father. One of the powerful models we see for this is in the life of King David when he expressed his heart to the Father in Psalm 27:4 by saying “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.”

There’s a great song that the band Jesus Culture does called “King of Wonders” and it has a line in it that says “the more we see , the more we love you.” The presence of God is addictive! The more you see Him, the more you want to see Him. The more you hear His voice, the more you listen for it! God designed you that way – that your hunger for Him would never be satisfied! He’s endless in beauty and glory. The minute you think you’ve seen it all, He’s like “BAMM!” - here’s another facet of my beauty! As a creative one, you are wired to want to tell others about God’s Beauty and reveal His Glory through your art. It’s a divine setup!

For me, one of the best times I hear the Lord is when I’m weaving a basket, looking for natural materials in the woods, or alone at my keyboard writing a song. Use those times in the creative secret place to invite the Holy Spirit to speak to you! He’s waiting!

Your Unique Expression
Often, people want to lump us together under the bland title of “artists”, but when it comes down to it, each one of us has a very different way of expressing our heart and the Glory of God. That’s the beauty of the Kingdom! What the enemy does to most of us – usually early in our artistic pursuits – is begin to sow doubt and unbelief in our hearts with junk like “you’ll never be as good as them” or “who do you think you are? Your art doesn’t look like theirs – it will never sell” or “Your stuff is too weird for commercial appeal.” And so before you’re even out of the gate, the enemy kills the very creative spark that God gave you as your own unique facet of His Glory. If the enemy is doing that to you, recognize it as a lie from the pit of hell and begin to declare God’s love, favor and creativity over your life!! Learning to wield the sword of His Word is the only way to gain power over the enemy in this area. You’ve got to know what God says about you so you can recognize the lies of the enemy and refute them.


What Do You Love?
I’ve always been fascinated with Appalachian folk art. For some reason, when I get up into the hills of North Carolina, Tennessee, North Georgia or Kentucky, I have this intense feeling of “these are my people”. It took me a while to understand that my love for basketry and folk art was God-given, not just some hobby I picked up along the way. Once I started to embrace and explore the possibilities for my unique expression in the Kingdom, the Father began to fling open doors of opportunity that intersected with my passions. I’m now involved in creative business ventures with people I was connected with prophetically that came through my love of kudzu – my primary basket weaving medium. The Father also picked us up and moved our family strategically to the center of Appalachian folk art – in Asheville, North Carolina. God loves to blow your mind if you’ll just trust Him enough to walk in your calling. (I could tell you the same kinds of stories with my love for graphic design, writing and leading worship.)

It’s important to really embrace the uniqueness that God’s placed on your life and art because it’s the very thing that He wants to use you in the most. It’s also the thing the enemy will come after the most in your life and seek to destroy. Part of developing your unique prophetic voice is diving into the uniqueness of your expression under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and asking Him to permeate every fiber of what you create. As you follow His lead, the Father will begin to setup divine appointments and strategic alignments in the Kingdom you never thought possible simply because you trusted Him enough to listen to His voice, follow His lead and step out in your uniqueness.

Once you are connected to the Father through His Word, intimate worship, hearing His voice and pursuing your unique artistic expression, you are on the road to seeing God blow your mind! He’s just waiting for you to open up the door so He can flow through you! The Father’s desire for you - His artisan - is to co-labor with Him in the Kingdom – doing the things that He wants to do in the earth – inspired by His creativity and Spirit – walking in daily relationship with Him. His Word says clearly in Joshua 1:3 “I will give you every place where you set your foot.” In the context of taking the Kingdom everywhere you walk, the Father chose artisans to serve many different functions - some you may be comfortable with and others you may be more reticent to accept.