Master Artist, Gourmet Chef, and Me

I don't know very much about art. Truth be told, I still put the sun in the corner of my paper with sunglasses and a smiley face. My art education roommate in college told me that's what kindergartners do. So that's the extent of my art expertise.

But I can recognize a good painting when I see one. At least, what I consider good. And as cliche as his art may have become Thomas Kinkade is known as the 'Painter of Light' for a reason. His paintings seem to glow with something ethereal and divine. The cottages aren't just cozy or his country churches merely quaint, there's something in them that we want to experience.

I am not a great cook either. I have a whole shelf of cookbooks that I've never used. Sticking to the same tried and true recipes, meals aren't very exciting around here. There's a reason my husband gets excited when were invited over for dinner. It's not that I'm a bad cook, just not a very confident cook.

But I can recognize a good meal when I have one. On our honeymoon we splurged on an expensive dinner at one of Bobby Flay's restaurants. Curtis had the steak, I had the lamb chops. His steak was the most perfectly seasoned, perfectly prepared cut of meat either of us had ever tasted. I practically licked my plate clean my lamb chops were so delicious. It was a meal that left us wanting more and we often talk about returning to NYC and eating there again.

Outside of Bar Americain

In the last few days, weeks, I've experienced the true Painter of Light doing work in my life. The Master Artist has been at work, layering in fresh colors, highlighting new details, tenderly adding depth, purposefully giving dimension to His created work--my life, my heart.  The Gourmet Chef has awakened a hunger and thirst for Him.

I've grown up in the church so I have a good amount of base knowledge of the things of God. As I've grown up and matured, through questioning, life experience, and lots of reading I've added to that base knowledge. But I'm afraid to admit that I've been subsisting on boiled down tidbits in certain areas. It's not necessarily my fault or the fault of my teachers but it's been subsistence all the same. And God has decided it's high time I feast on the Word and put some spiritual fat on my base knowledge bones.

This time, instead of teaching me through an emotional experience, or perhaps because I've given my attention willingly instead of forcing His hand to strip me of my distractions, I'm learning differently. I'm seeing  a beautiful methodology being used by the Artist, a rich feast prepared by the Gourmet Chef.

He showed me a lack of discipline in my life and asked me to focus my striving on simply being disciplined to meet with Him intentionally and consistently. The discipline led to a few reminders on obedience, because the two go hand in hand. He asked me to eliminate some of the noise, like Facebook, so that I could hear Him more clearly whenever He called. The Master Artist was adding some depth to my stark canvas outline.

And once that work was begun (this is a lifestyle for a lifetime, not an acquiesce for a moment) He taught me many things about prayer that I had never even considered before, let alone been practicing. The true power and purpose of prayer, the longevity and legacy of prayer, the sacrifice and intercessory abilities of prayer. Too many things to clumsily recount here. Perhaps most importantly, I've come to finally understand the real power of praying His Word, of claiming it for myself and standing on its Truth. It seems absurd that a good little Sunday School girl like me has taken twenty-eight and a half years to really digest that wonderful morsel but I've always been a picky eater.

Every lesson I've ever heard on prayer has boiled it down to some simple formula (A.C.T.S. or each finger on your hand stands for something to include in prayer or just pray the 'Our Father'--it was good enough for Jesus). But that's not it at all. It's not a formula, it's not a boiled down tidbit, something easily contained and explained in one half-hour Sunday school lesson. Prayer is one of the vast wells of Spiritual water, of God's goodness, even of divine mystery. The more you know about prayer, the more there seems to know about prayer, much like God Himself. I believe that's by (His) design. Just as the more you read the Word, the more you keep returning to the Word because it's always the same but forever revealing new depths of truth. Much like God Himself. A masterpiece invites the viewer to gaze a little longer, to come back and see the painting in different light, to consider the beauty from all angles. God does all this and more.

God has taught me about time and numbering my days, about seeing my service to Him as simply organizing and He's doing the doing, about giving worth and precedence to my priorities the way He does. And in all of this, He has taught me about Himself. To learn about the things of God--prayer, Scriptures, service, time, priorities--is to learn about God. And instead of just another fact-finding mission to satiate my intellect, this has been a gourmet feast on God Himself to satisfy my soul. Not satisfaction for all time, but like any nourishment, one meal at a time, one day at a time. Like manna falling from Heaven, more must be gathered and digested each day to keep my soul satisfied.

It's not for the painting to decide when it's finished but the painter. I am clearly an unfinished work but I hope to be one of His masterpieces. I want to be a canvas on which He can leave His unmistakable and indelible signature. I want to be a painting that reveals something inside people want to experience for themselves.

And just as I've been fed on the Word of the Lord, and the meals prepared by others in His name, I want to feed those hungry souls the good things of God. I want to nourish as I've been nourished.

I've been given new light and dimension. I've been strengthened and nourished. And the Master Artist, the Gourmet Chef is just getting started.


*If you're searching for some extra nourishment for your prayer life, these are the books I've been reading:
Handle With Prayer by Charles Stanley
The Prayer of Hannah by Kenn Gividen
Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanna Weaver
A Busy Woman's Guide to Prayer by Cherri Fuller
On my list to read soon:
Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? by Philip Yancey
The Circle Maker: Drawing Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears by Mark Batterson.
Please feel free to leave any titles on prayer that have strengthened and nourished you, or added new light and dimension to your prayer life!

My Mary Heart

I've been re-reading the book Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanna Weaver. When I read it the first time I did what I usually do---devour it quickly in a frenzy of book love but then can't remember what I read just a few days later. It's hard for book lovers to find that balance of eating up pages and letting it nourish you at the same time. So this time I decided to take notes and actually physically write down the passages or sentences that resonate within. I did the same with The Applause of Heaven by Max Lucado (which I also just re-read for the same reasons) which takes apart the Beattitudes and puts them back together in heart changing ways.

Anyway, while reading Having a Mary Heart... last night it suddenly hit me like a proverbial ton of bricks and I felt like such a dunce for not seeing it before. Mary Heart. Merry Heart. You see, this book takes the story of Mary and Martha, two sisters who knew Jesus personally--and by personally I mean that in every way. They actually met Him face to face in a physical way we never will here on Earth. But they knew Him personally in a spiritual way, the way we can know Him this side of Heaven. And this story about Mary and Martha is the main focus of the book:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)

And so Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World speaks to the fact that so many women get caught up in serving the Lord that we neglect spending time at His feet really learning from Him. Having a 'Mary Heart' then is a heart that is willing to stop the busyness of life to sit at His feet. A Mary Heart seeks Him first, always and always first. A Mary Heart knows Jesus personally, intimately, even passionately.

So no wonder I felt so DUH! I've been sitting here all this time wanting A Merry Heart. Still do. But the emphasis was on joyful, cheerful nature. A Mary Heart places all of the desires on Jesus. I'm spiritually clued in enough to know that the only way to get that joy and cheer I thirst for is to drink up Jesus...but rather than Jesus being the means to the end, He is the end. For a Mary Heart Jesus is all you desire and by pursuing that desire and being changed by indulging in a desire for Christ, a Merry Heart soon follows.

A Mary Heart = A Merry Heart.

The Bible has two other Marys we all know and love. Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. I think they both had Mary Hearts, although theirs perhaps look different than the Mary, Martha's sister. Mary the mother of Jesus treasured in her heart all the things people said about her son, she thought upon them, she trusted what God said, she trusted what His angels and His people said. I think she is perhaps the greatest example of a Biblical woman with deep faith. Who had more to doubt than Mary? It all must've seemed impossible and insane but she had such faith in God she trusted in the impossible and insane. And her faithfulness was rewarded. Oh, that I could have her heart. A heart that treausures Him and finds deep wells of faith.

The Bible doesn't say why Jesus revealed His resurrected self to Mary Magdalene first. My guess is because of her Mary Heart.  She had been posessed by demons--I can't imagine nor want to even try what that was like for her. Tortured by the Enemy, not just tempted and tried as we all are...but posessed by his demons, torturing her from within. But Jesus saved her from this torture, and then forgave her of her sins because He loved her not for what she could ever do or be, but because she was a child of God.  Who wouldn't be devoted to such a Savior? I think Mary Magdalene's heart was perhaps the most devoted and that devotion continued after His death. She was there in the Garden because of her devotion to Him, and maybe that's why she was blessed to see Him first. She was devoted in her heart even when it seemed there was nothing left to be devoted to. And while the theory of romantic love between Jesus and Mary is a load of hogwash, I think they loved each other very much. A love so much more profound than romatic love, a love that is spiritually intimate, a love between the Savior and the saved. Oh, that I could have her heart, so full of love and devotion for the One who saved me.

Yes, a Mary Heart. A heart that desires Him always first and sits at His feet, a heart that treasures Him and is filled with faith, a heart that is devoted to Him even when it seems all hope is lost. And then if my heart can be all these things...it will be Merry. It would be impossible to be anything else.