I Didn't Expect This Part

It’s officially fall, although you might not know it by stepping outside.

We’re still having hot days here in Northern California, and heat waves have been popping up in other parts of the country too. But within a few weeks, our days will be noticeably different. Cooler mornings. Earlier evenings. Different light.

The calendar says the season has already changed. It just takes a while for everything else to catch up.

I think life can be like that too.

I’m writing this as I get ready for a 12-day, three-city trip—ministry training, time with family in Kansas and Denver, and then the annual LifeWave convention in Anaheim.

And, rather ridiculously, I am attempting to do the whole thing with one carry-on. 😂

A trip like this wouldn’t have been possible for me for many years. My life had certain boundaries, responsibilities and rhythms. I didn’t resent them. They were simply part of loving Steve and the life we shared.

But my season has changed.

I’m beginning to notice the change in very practical ways. I can go somewhere because I want to go. I can say yes to an opportunity without first calculating all the logistics at home. I’m making new friends. New possibilities are showing up that I wasn’t even looking for.

And I can make a decision because it feels right—and because Jesus and I have talked about it.

That kind of freedom still feels new to me.

My art is stretching me in much the same way. I’m beginning to reach beyond the places where my work has been known and comfortable, trying to figure out how to introduce it to people outside my familiar world. I don’t quite know how to do that yet. It’s requiring some creative thinking and a willingness to try things that may or may not work.

I’m also thinking about ministry again in ways I haven’t for years.

The funny thing is, I find myself anticipating good things.

Maybe that has surprised me most.

October seems like a pretty good picture of it. Summer doesn’t abruptly disappear because the calendar says fall has arrived. We can still have an afternoon that feels like August, then step outside the next morning and know something is changing.

The seasons overlap.

Maybe that’s one reason Further In has stayed with me even after I finished painting it.

There’s a path in that painting leading toward something beautiful in the distance, but you can’t see every detail of where it goes.

Apparently, I painted something I’m now living.

I don’t know exactly what this next season will look like. For once, I’m pretty comfortable not knowing.

There is something rather wonderful about waking up and asking,

“So, Jesus…what are we doing today?”

And being genuinely curious about the answer.

Further In

Sometimes you know what is drawing you long before you know exactly how to get there.

That is what began to emerge as I painted Further In.

The way ahead isn't completely defined. But we can recognize what is drawing us.

A path winds through an abundant landscape of flowers, trees and color toward a distant city. Above it hangs an enormous cloud filled with the fiery glory of God. The fire seems to fall upon the city, and yet nothing is consumed. Instead, everything is surrounded by light and Presence.

Even the path itself isn't completely certain. Is it earth? Is it water? The landscape feels familiar, and yet there is something otherworldly about it too.

At first, the glory in the distance seems to be the destination.

Follow the path. Keep going. There is more ahead.

But look again.

The light isn't only in the distance.

It is touching the path. It is reflected in the landscape. It is already here.

And that became the deeper meaning of this painting for me.

We can spend so much of our lives looking toward what is ahead—waiting for the breakthrough, the answer, the fulfillment of a promise, the next place God is leading us. We see something in the distance and recognize, That's where I'm going.

There is nothing wrong with that longing. I believe God places desires in us that keep drawing us deeper into Him.

But His Presence isn't waiting for us at the end of the road.

He's on the road with us.

The glory that seems to be calling from the distance is the same Presence surrounding us here.

And there is another side to the invitation.

Sometimes we become so satisfied with the goodness we have already experienced that we can settle comfortably into where we are. We have known His faithfulness. We have tasted His goodness. We have found peace in His Presence.

And still, there is more.

Not because what He has given us isn't enough, but because He is inexhaustible.

That is the two-way invitation of Further In.

To recognize and receive His Presence right where we are—and at the same time, remain responsive when He draws us deeper.

His Presence is not merely something we pass through on our way to something else.

He is the reward.

He is our satisfaction, our safety and our peace. Ultimately, everything we are searching for is found in Him.

Maybe that is why the path in this painting needed to remain a little mysterious.

We don't always need to see the whole road.

We only need to recognize the One who is drawing us—and discover that He has been with us all along.

Receive the beauty of where you are.

And when He draws you deeper, go further in.

God Doesn’t Need a Clean Canvas

I recently pulled out a painting I had done about seven years ago, when I had only been painting for a few years.

It was called In the Midst.

There were things I liked about it, but I was never really satisfied with it. Eventually, it ended up in the pile with some of my other old paintings. Not necessarily something I was going to throw away, but certainly not something I expected to do much with.

Something prompted me to pull it out again.

Many of my painting choices were simply those of an inexperienced painter. The colors weren't quite right. Some areas were too heavy. Others were flat. There were places where I had been sloppy or just didn't yet know how to do what I was trying to do.

And then there was the texture.

Back then I was experimenting with all kinds of things. I added different materials and textures, trying this and that without really knowing where any of it would lead. It was pretty haphazard.

Seven years later, all of that was still there.

I could have looked at those old experiments as something I had to cover up. Instead, as I began working on the painting again, something interesting happened.

They gave me something to work with.

The uneven surfaces caught the paint differently. Old marks showed through new layers. What had once seemed random began creating depth and interest in places I couldn't have planned.

In fact, I don't think I could reproduce some of it now if I tried.

The inexperienced painter had unknowingly left something behind for the more experienced painter to work with.

And I began thinking about the way God works with us.

We love Romans 8:28:

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him..."

All things.

That's a pretty enormous promise.

I've lived long enough now to have some things I wish had gone differently. I've made mistakes and choices I wouldn't make today. There are things that happened to me that I certainly didn't choose.

And I've experienced loss I would never call good.

I don't believe Romans 8:28 asks us to call those things good. It tells us that God can work in all things for our good.

There is a difference.

God doesn't need a clean canvas.

He can work with the decisions we wish we'd made differently, the things we tried that didn't work, the years when we didn't know what we know now, and even the things that happened to us that we would never have chosen.

Some of it may look pretty haphazard from where we're standing.

But none of it is beyond His creative hands.

As I worked on the painting, a dark area could become depth. A shape that hadn't quite worked could disappear into something else. A new color layered over an old one created a richness I wouldn't have had if that first color hadn't been there.

Even the roughness became part of the beauty.

I find myself wondering if God does something like that with us.

Not erasing our stories. Not pretending the painful parts weren't painful. And not somehow making evil good.

Redeeming.

Taking what is actually there and creating with it.

Maybe that's one of the reasons this old painting has affected me so much.

I didn't remove every evidence of the inexperienced painter who first created it. She's still there. Her experiments are there. Her brushstrokes are underneath mine.

And now I can see what became possible because I didn't have to erase them.

The painting has a new name.

Glory Falls.

And there is one final detail that doesn't really show in a photograph. I added just a little real gold metallic paint to the falling glory—lightly and gently, just enough to catch the changing light throughout the day. Sometimes you see it. Sometimes you don't. Then the light shifts and there it is.

I think that's rather fitting.

Because perhaps glory doesn't only fall on the parts of our lives we think turned out well.

It falls into the rough places too—the mistakes, the experiments, the losses, the things we wish had been different.

And somehow, in the creative hands of God, nothing is wasted.