The Thriving Christian Artist
The Thriving Christian Artist
Embracing God's Timing in Your Artistic Journey
Do you find yourself growing impatient with God's timing in your artistic journey? You're not alone. That frustration—wanting success now, progress immediately, recognition instantly—is something almost every artist battles.
Through personal studio revelations and spiritual insights, this episode explores how God uses the textured, broken places in our lives to create the most beautiful aspects of our art and testimony. Just as a painter uses texture to hold color and create depth, God uses our challenging seasons to reveal His glory in ways that smooth paths never could.
The enemy wants you to believe you're behind schedule, too old, or somehow disqualified from your artistic calling. But God's timing—whether in sudden breakthroughs or extended journeys—is perfectly aligned with His purposes for your life. When we release our timetables and focus instead on faithful daily actions, we position ourselves for sustainable growth rather than exhausting spurts of striving.
Those winter seasons in your creative life aren't just waiting periods—they're strategic opportunities. Historical basket makers understood this, using winter's confinement to build inventory that would sustain them through other seasons. Similarly, your apparent delays can become divine appointments for skill refinement and creative exploration that busier seasons wouldn't permit.
The texture of your artistic journey—with all its winters and valleys—isn't something to escape but something to embrace. Every delay has purpose, every setback contains potential, and every season plays its role in revealing His glory through your creative expression. When we trust the Master's timing, we discover that sometimes the long way home is actually the most beautiful path forward.
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Welcome to the Thriving Christian Artist, the podcast, where we hope you connect with God to bust through the roadblocks that have held you back for years, create the work you love and really live the life you know. God created you to live as an artist in His kingdom. I'm Matt Tama, your host. Let's get started. Well, hey, my friend, welcome to the podcast, so glad that you're here. You know, one of the things that I see all the time in my life and in the lives of so many of the artists that we walk with, either in our foundations, course and community or the artist mentoring program, is frustration with the timing of God in their life. I don't know if you're like me or you're like a lot of other artists, but doggone it. I don't know if you're like me or you're like a lot of other artists, but doggone it. We want things now and we want things quickly and we want things in the way and on the time frame on the calendar that we think is best for our life. And if you've been walking with the Lord for any length of time, you realize that God's timing is not always our timing and that doesn't mean necessarily that God just takes a long time for things to get done. Sometimes, you know, he can do more in a suddenly than we can in years of striving right. He can just boom, release something quickly that we didn't even realize was on the radar of our life. And then other times he loves to take us through this beautiful process of walking a journey and working out those rough places and those crevices in our life, those kind of places that are rough in our life. He loves to take us through a journey where he can deal with those things, where we can see the foolishness of our ways, where he can allow us to let go of habits and mindsets and ways of viewing life, ourself and God, our art, all those things in order to really come into alignment with who he is.
Speaker 1:There's a beautiful new song out. The last few weeks If you've followed me on Facebook and Instagram, you've seen me share it by a worship artist named Natalie Jane, and I just love it and I get nothing. I have no affiliation, I have with her, but uh, I just am so in love with this song. It's called, uh, the long way home and it's on her brand new album. I think it's uh, her albums called all joy. But um, man, what an incredible album. But this song Call the Long Way Home.
Speaker 1:It talks about this frustration that we have with the timing of God. But she's got this one part in there that says she's kind of talking about her own journey and she says take me down the long way if the long way leads to you. And I was like, oh, oh, you're killing me. In a good way, you're killing me, but you know it. Just, it just really drew me back into the presence of the Lord the other day and say, god, I want to come into a place afresh in my life where, no matter if I can see the vision or not, whether I've got a plan in my hand from you and I'm executing on that, or whether all I have is a promise and the hope of faith in my life that you are good and you're doing something. God, I trust the journey that you have me on and I trust that you're working all things together for my good, no matter if it's happening like I think it should happen or if it's happening in a way that is unknown and unfamiliar to me. So I want to give you three things you know I think will help you in that today. The first thing is that you know we've got to trust God's timing when it comes to growth, even when the journey feels slow, because In those times, in those places where we are in the cracks and crevices of life, in the valley moments, in these moments where we don't understand, those are often the times that God does his deepest work.
Speaker 1:You know, I was in the studio the other day working on a set of really studies in the cold wax paintings that I do, just trying to get a little more depth of color and texture and some more interesting surfaces for these new pieces I've created in this recent series. And the Lord just reminded me. He said you know these textures that you love to create in your painting, these textures that are often ugly and cracked and don't make a lot of sense. Some of them you cover up, some of them you celebrate whatever. Those are the most beautiful places in your work and those are a reflection of what I'm doing in your life. In other words, I'm using all these, shall we say, broken moments and these moments where things aren't perfect, where we don't quite understand what's going on. I'm using those to reveal my goodness, reveal my glory, reveal my strength in the places that you feel weak and broken. And you know, the more I started thinking about that, I'm like wow, you know, the whole point for me as an artist in putting texture is my work is that so it not only can hold the viewer's interest but it also holds color. Those textures and cracks for me are what holds the glazes, of, what allows these beautiful glazes to kind of come over and soften and unify the work. And all of a sudden, these places that we didn't quite know what to do with when a glaze comes over it, oh, like it, it just becomes beautiful. And I I was like Lord, you're speaking to me. You're speaking to me right here in the middle of the studio. That is in these broken textural places, the texture of our life, that your glory is made manifest and magnified through us.
Speaker 1:The second thing I think is is really important is that we have to, as an act of our will, I think, on a daily basis and maybe even moment by moment, you got to learn to intentionally release the timeline of your development as an artist and your potential growth as an art business owner. You got to release that to the Lord and focus on the faithful, focus on the small action. Focus on the daily things that you are doing that are bringing you closer to the Lord. Why? Because we know that when we're faithful, with little, god makes his ruler over much. Fruit doesn't happen in your life because you try harder. Fruit is produced through your life as the natural action outcome of closeness and faithfulness to the Lord. That is huge for you to understand.
Speaker 1:The enemy will always try to get you to work in striving, always try to get you to compare yourself to others, always make you think that you're behind, you're missed it, you're too old, you're somehow disqualified. That is his game. And so realize, when you feel those things, you have a choice. You can either, as we say in the South, wallow around in it and just keep planting those seeds in your heart and just treating them like they're the truth, or you can answer those things with a response from his word that says nope. I know that you're working all things together for my good. I know that, even though I don't see it, you're moving in my life. I know that my faithfulness produces fruit, not my striving, not my trying harder. I know that I don't have to be jealous of others that are seemingly walking in a season of fruitfulness in their life, because that is coming in my life as I continue to walk with you. Listen, you got to learn to stir yourself up in your faith and I think, again, that's one of the big, big, big parts of being a part of a community that we see is that, oh my gosh, when you're walking in community with people, you can encourage and support one another when you don't feel like it inside. And then, number three, I would just say this. And then number three, I would just say this using seasons of waiting is really a great opportunity to refine your skills, deepen your faith, build up information in your life that you're trying to learn about, marketing and business and connecting with new galleries and all this stuff. In other words, to build a strong foundation.
Speaker 1:See, winter seasons in your life are often scary. Right, they feel desolate, they feel dark, they feel like God's not at work, they feel like we're out alone, the snow and the wind and the ice, and, oh, it's just going to get us. And we're like God, get me to the spring, get me to the summer. But you know one of the things that the Lord showed me years ago, just as a basket maker, when we moved to Asheville, north Carolina, I started seeing these historical pictures of people that were basket makers back in the 1800s, early 1900s. And these were not professional artists, you know what they were. They were farmers and homesteaders who, in the winter, when they couldn't get out and do the other stuff that they were doing, they would make baskets. Baskets was winter work. It was a thing that you did so that you could sit by the fire, stay warm. And in fact there's these great pictures of historically, of people making these baskets in these one room cabins up in the mountains and their whole house was just filled floor to ceiling, front to back, with baskets that they were making in order to be able to sell in the spring and in the summer.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, wow God, what a picture of your kingdom that our winter seasons can be times where we're building up our inner inventory, where we're building up our art, where we're able to create new work, we're able to explore and do things that we could never do in seasons of fruitfulness, in order to realize that those things are going to accelerate us and prepare us for the seasons of spring, of sprouting and of harvest that are coming. We know they're coming right. For everything there's a season, but we have to trust the Lord in the middle of that. So, rather than despising these winter seasons, do the things that you never get to do and trust God in the process that he is at work. Listen, my friend, the more that you trust God in the texture of your life, the more that you learn to trust his timing, release the timeframe of your art career and your art development to him and learn to use those seasons of waiting, those seasons of not yet in your life, to build foundation. You are promised by God's word that you're going to be growing in maturity and that you're going to be co-laboring with him as he's using all things together for your good. My friend, I hope that this encourages you today, wherever you are in your journey.
Speaker 1:Make sure that you're subscribed here to the Thriving Christian Artist podcast and, hey, make sure that you're sharing these episodes with your friends. Let them know that this podcast, for so many years, has been, and continues to be, an encouragement in your life. My heart, my calling in life is to raise up an army of artists to reveal God's glory in the earth, and we do that not through just cool marketing and business tips, although we're training on those all the time, both here and in the mentoring program. But we do that by teaching you how to co-labor with the kingdom of God and see transformation happen in your life from the inside out, the way God designed. Hey, my friend, I love you. Join me again and remember till next time.
Speaker 1:You were created to thrive. Bye, hey. Thanks so much for spending a few minutes with me today on the podcast Listen. I hope it's been a huge encouragement to you on your journey as an artist. Hey, also, before you leave, make sure to hit the subscribe button so you don't miss any of the other episodes of the Thriving Christian Artist podcast, and also be sure to connect with me on Facebook, instagram or at my website, which is matttommymentoringcom. Until next time, remember you were created to thrive. Bye-bye, thank you.