Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Bible Art Journaling: What If My Art Isn't Good Enough?



I am part of the Facebook group Journaling Bible Community and there are people there with ALL levels, abilities and styles of journaling in their bibles.

Some use stickers, some do amazing lettering, some do stick figures, some only smear a bit of paint on the page and then write out their thoughts pertaining to the scripture they are studying.  Some are true pieces of artwork all on their own.

Often, there are comments made by the person that they can't draw, they made mistakes in their journaling, etc.

Sometimes, these comments seems to rub some people the wrong way.  They feel that the person making those comments are looking more at making art than they are the spiritual part of bible art journaling - which are devotionals, meditating and learning and focusing solely on God's word.  Sometimes, there seems to be some anger or judgment toward the people who point out what they feel are inadequacies in their bible journaling.

This makes me sad.

Here is my take on it.

 I understand why people make these comments. They are unsure and insecure of their abilities. They want to present a beautiful offering to our beautiful God but feel it isn't good enough. Just as Christ accepts us with all our imperfections, so does he accept our imperfect art and sees it as beautiful and perfect offerings from our heart, praising, worshiping and learning from His Word. So..maybe encouragement that God accepts and is pleased with our efforts, as imperfect as they are, can help people to not be so concerned and not focus so much on the imperfections and focus more on the act of worshiping, meditation and learning ad knowing that God IS pleased with our efforts.

Let's please have some compassion and show mercy and understanding.  Teach and encourage instead of responding with anger.  

1 comment:

  1. Michelle, very nice summary of your thoughts on "not good enough" .

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