Weighed & Wanting

The afternoon of May 28, I finished reading my latest excursion into George MacDonald excellence by way of a novel titled The Gentlewoman’s Choice (originally titled Weighed and Wanting).

The underlying message of this novel is for the Christian, wherever they may be in life’s journey, to identify the talents God has given them, then to put them to use at whatever they find to do, no matter how small the task may seem to be. The further truth imparted was that a person who is willing to work at small things and do them faithfully will then be given larger things to do as they become prepared for those larger things.

This particular message resonated with me as both an artist and a writer.

You see, I have always dreamed of painting those Masterpieces or writing the Great American Novel. That work of art or work of writing that changes lives and ‘lives forever’ has been my fondest dream.

But in the aftermath of this book, I can’t help but ask myself if I have done correctly. Neither literary or artistic masterpiece has resulted from my labors and I wonder, now, whether that perceived lack of success is caused by my failure to faithfully and excellently execute the small tasks I’ve been given over the years. Those little paintings or writings that have seemed ‘too small to be important’ and may have been dashed off with more carelessness than they deserved. How much of the perceived import of any of the projects I’ve taken on with enthusiasm and finished with frustration have received less than my best work to my own detriment?

The opposite side of that coin is this: How do I know that my purpose as an artist or a writer is less to impact broad society and more to impact the individual life?

Christians are encouraged in holy writ to do whatever work they do to the best of their ability and in glory to God. The common human error is to think that God values what man values and that nothing but the absolute best can ever be used in service to Him.

So we struggle for the best we can do and, I fear, ignore or minimize the many little things we do along the way. Who’s to say that the hand written note inside a get well card is worth less than a New York Times Best Seller to the person who receives it?

And who is to say that a portrait painted with the utmost compassion and given to someone who has lost their beloved pet is any more or less valuable than a Renoir or Rembrandt to the person who receives it?

I can’t make that claim, though the responses to those ‘small gifts’ has given me food for thought on more than one occasion.

So I am faced with the question of motivation. Do I want to make those important contributions to art and writing for my own sake or for the glory of God?

If it is for my own sake, can there be any wonder that things have not turned out as I might have hoped?

Of course, I won’t know that for sure until I stand before the Final Judge, but I can look back at things done hastily or poorly or both and consider myself to have been weighed and found wanting.

Recognizing that, the question then becomes, what do I do about it?

It doesn’t seem like the right thing to do to stop striving to be the best artist or writer I can be. Not by any means. That is part of my commission as a Christian who is also a writer and an artist.

But it does seem to demand I stop categorizing my paintings or stories as “important” or “unimportant”; that it would instead be better to treat them all as service to God and, as such, of the utmost importance.

Sketches, studies, portraits and grand paintings are all equally important to God if He has given them to me to do.

Blog posts, journal entries, essays, short stories and novels are likewise all equally important to God if He has given them to me to do.

And if He hasn’t given them to me to do, I should not be doing them, no matter how grand or glorious they may seem on the earthly scale. That is not my work and I do wrong by attempting to fulfill a role that is not mine to fulfill just as surely as if I ignored a role that is mine to fulfill.