Seeing Color

Thank you for your prayers.

Greetings from Rome.

Because of my ongoing visa issues,
I have to leave the UK periodically,
and the cheapest trip this time was Rome.

There have been a lot of divine appointments
and God's provision on this trip is profound.
In the midst of this journey,
I've had the opportunity
to see some of the greatest art
our civilization ever produced.

And a lot of spray paint on old buildings.

Young artists have been taught
for a generation that spray paint
and "deconstruction"
is art.

And when I go into art galleries
and attend arts events
I am left
with the deep
meaningless reality
where many artists live.

It's a big black hole of ephemera.

Here today,
gone tomorrow,
and no one will remember.

The God of the Bible
is the Most Relational Being
in the Universe.

As Steve Seamands once said,
to remove relationship
from the equation
is to "go against the grain of the Holy Trinity."

And sadly,
because of turf wars
in the church,
most of the theology and teaching
out there doesn't include God,
and leaves out the relationship part.

And relationship is everything.

Relationship
fills your life
with meaning.

And that reality
of relationship will change you.
When you get close to Jesus,
Jesus is going to transform
you into his image.
He is going to cause you
to see things the way he does.

And suddenly,
a once meaningless world
is full of meaning.

"Heaven above is softer blue,
earth around is sweeter green.
Something lives in every hue,
Christless eyes have never seen.
Birds with gladder songs o'erflow,
Flowers with deeper beauties shine,
for I know, as now I know,
I am His, and He is mine."
(Wade Robinson, 1890)

A few years ago,
I was praying with someone
who had suffered terrible trauma
when Apartheid was ending in South Africa.

As the Lord healed his soul,
the Lord also healed his body.
And he suddenly said,
"Wow, I can see green!
The green is getting greener."

And I prayed some more,
and his perception of color changed.
The colors he saw became brighter
as the weight and pain
of the past fell away.

He had been through hell,
but Jesus had gone there already,
and took all the sting away.

Our calling as artists and creators in the Kingdom
is to bring that deeper hue
to a world that thinks
the dull
grey
dystopian
concrete
is normal.

A little color will bring a lot of meaning.

He Never Fails,