Artists and storytellers are one of God’s gifts to the world. Through their work people might see a reflection of themselves and, seeing, might decide to change. They might hear a far off sound, see a flash of light, or find a hand to help them climb to greater things. Books and art might inspire them to become more like their Creator, the One in whose image they are made. Pictures and words leave an impression on our minds, touch our souls with messages eternal, imprints of truth, for which we, knowingly or unknowingly, search, in order that we might become who we really are.
When artists and storytellers lose hope, they cannot shine light into the lives of those who need someone to illuminate their steep and rocky path so they might climb out of it to a more pleasant land. If they are to shed light into the world, writers and artists must have hope. Messages and pictures from a hopeless place merely increase darkness in the soul. Those who are charged with the responsibility of writing and painting works that are vehicles for truth, must also dip their pen or brush into the pot of hope that sits on the desk of the Almighty, and with the dark colours of truth mix hues of hope. They must find a way to paint a silver lining on every cloud. To fail means that the mirror they hold up to humanity merely impresses them with the hopelessness of living in a fallen world.
Most writers and artists, if they are honest, write and paint because they feel compelled to share truth as they themselves have glimpsed it. The world will only be a better place through their gifting if that truth is light-filled. Writers and artists who are connected to the Light of the world are best placed to be conduits of light into a dark world. They are tools in the hand of the intelligent Creator. He inspires them with stories and artwork that reflect not only the truth about the darkness of the human heart, but the light of hope that shines from the One who is redeeming and restoring it. They are those whose works cause light to shine on the reader’s path so that it becomes “brighter and brighter until the full light of day.”
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