A Picture of God's Heart as the Artist
by Grace Wiebe, Sept. 2004
About 3 years ago or so, I felt God gave me a dream one night which really helped me to get a better emotional grasp of His heart for His art - and His heart as an Artist - THE ARTIST....
Many times artists do not really feel validated as artists, and for most of my life, even though I had played piano for much of my life, I didn't even usually think of myself as a 'musician' even though I was in bands and travelling internationally with one of the bands, and even though we had recorded a couple albums and tapes!
It's only as God has gradually been revealing Himself to me, over the past 8 or so years, as God the Artist - in various ways, that I have really felt increasingly and deeply affirmed and validated as an artist. Interestingly, it is since He has been revealing Himself to me in these ways that the artistic expressions coming out of me are growing and increasing as well. The Bible says we become like that which we behold (not necessarily those words), and it seems that since this is one of the ways I seem to keep seeing Him more clearly, the more it seems He is able to release more of His creativity through me, as well.
Anyway, in the dream I felt He gave me, it was almost like He was taking me with Him on a flight through the air over much of Canada's amazing wildernesses where no one sees most of His art except for Him and His angels!
In my dream He was showing me the many varieties of intricate trees and flowers He had created! And He had me survey huge, towering mountains and tiny gorgeous particles of sand! He displayed for me incredible assortments and sizes of His animals and birds and I was enthralled by the landscapes, mountains and valleys, waters and skies He had created...and the ways He had arranged them....so wild and wonderful and each so different! He showed me the many different shapes and colors and had me feel many of the different textures. He let me hear the many awesome sounds - the many different bird sounds, the sounds of crashing waves and quiet breezes, the sounds of earthquakes with new mountain forms being created and then the peaceful silence of watching watching white, fluffly clouds go by or relaxing under the stars in the ptich darkness! His art elicited such powerful emotional and spiritual responses!
It just went on and on and it was mind -boggling to behold His art with Him! I was absolutely overwhelmed with worship of Him at His incredible love expressed to mankind through His absolutely beautiful and powerfully moving art!
The first characteristic we read about God in Gen. 1:1 is that He is the Artist. Romans 1 tells us that because of God's art, we are 'without excuse' - His art is THAT powerful and gives us enough revelation of who He is to cause us to be 'without excuse'....incredible!
But even more than being overwhelmed with His love expressed through the beauty, grandeur and majesty of His art, I was overcome with HIS incredible delight at the art He had made, and how it made HIM feel to create it! HIS heart was filled with joy as He just had let His imagination go wild in the mult-dimensional and multi-sensory art He had created...with all of its glorious and diverse components!!
I felt soo privileged that He would take me on this personal tour with Him to show me His art and express to me HOW HE FELT ABOUT IT....I experienced Him as God the Artist, and when I woke up, I was in tears and in absolute silent awe of Him.
From that day on, something changed in my heart and my own sense of call as one of His artists was GREATLY strengthened. I also became more passionate about encouraging and validating artists in their God-given calling as artists, and encouraging them to be all that God is calling them to be as His godly artists in this world which is in desperate need of art which reflects God's glory!
This dream just helped to more deeply establish the biblical underpinnings of what He has already been building in my heart over the years regarding the vital role God has for His artists and for the arts in His purposes in the earth in encouraging people to become whole-hearted, total-life worshippers of Jesus Christ!
Great Commission Worship & Arts Center