Finding God’s Will for Your Gift

A lot of times I hear from people wanting to know God’s will for their creativity and for that matter their lives. They want to know if they’re really hearing from God about how to use their gifts or they’re just being selfish… Here are a few things I have found:

1. Have You Prayed About It and Are You Continuing to Pray?: There are no shortcuts on this one. The best way to know God’s will is to ask Him? Pray. Ask God to guide your steps. Ask Him to open doors to good opportunities and close doors to the ones outside His will. Ask Him to help you faithfully pursue the things that are His will.
2. Are You in the Word of God?: God wants us to know Him so He gave us a book and as we read that book (The Bible) we come to understand what God is like. The more you know Him the easier it is to follow Him so read His Word.
3. Are You in Christ?: Have you asked Jesus into your heart to be your Lord and Savior? If not this needs to move to the top of the list. You see when Jesus is Lord of your life, His Holy Spirit comes into your life and helps you and guides you. If you haven’t done this yet contact me and I’ll guide you through it.
4. Do You Love Doing What You’re Doing?: A lot of people see this as a selfish question, almost as if God doesn’t want us to be happy. Friend, God is a loving Father. He does want you to be happy. More than that, He wants you to be joyful. The Scripture tells us “The joy of the Lord is Our strength.” Will you always be happy? No. Should you quit at the first sign of unhappiness? Only if you never want to succeed anything you ever do. But who do you think wired you to like the good things you like? Who do you think gave you your gifts and talents? I’ll give you hint, the same one who has a plan and a purpose for your life. God didn’t design you for drudgery, He loves you.
5. Are Sou Sinning?: If you are, quit now. God’s will for your life will never include sin, period. Repent and turn around now.
6. Are You Being Faithful?: If you feel like God might be leading you in a direction, pray and then begin to take action. Try it. Do what you can with what you have right now to begin doing what you believe God might be leading you to do. Get started and take the next right step in the direction you think that God is leading. Ask Him daily to guide you in the process and follow Him.

At the end of the day, it’s this simple. God loves you. He wants what’s best for you so trust Him and follow Him today. Move into His will and allow Him to steer.

There’s a passage in the Bible that tells us how to be in God’s will. It’s Romans 12:1,2: Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

It’s this simple really. Because God has shown us mercy by giving Jesus to die for our sins, we should offer our lives to God for Him to use as He sees fit. When we do this, we trust Him fully and our lives become and act of worship. We stop going the way the rest of the world is going and we pattern our lives after our perfect Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. When we pattern our lives after His we will know and understand God’s will.

Are you living in God’s will? If not, why not take the first right step today.

Art Supply Review: Sharpie Brush Tip Marker

I have a confession to make.

I drive my friend and fellow cartoonist Rick Bundschuh a little crazy every time he sees me draw. You see Rick is an amazing cartoonist. His approach to inking is gorgeous and very refined. He uses a brush and India Ink and his work is beautiful.

For years out of necessity, I have taken a different approach. I ink with Sharpies. I get the brush effect by painstakingly drawing dimensional lines and then filling them in as if I were coloring a coloring book. It is a bit tedious, but I usually ink in my living room or even on planes where a bottle of india ink and a brush would be disastrous. I’ve considered using a brush pen or even brush markers but the cost has been prohibitive for the volume of work I do so I stuck with my old faithful Sharpies. I love them.

Then one day I was walking through Target and I saw my dream come true, a brush tip Sharpie! I bought one immediately, took it home and put it to work. The tip is really nice and juicy and really holds it’s shape. I can make really pretty lines in a lot less time and the ink seems to last for quite a while which was always a complaint I had with more expensive markers. This is a pretty great product I will be using a lot more frequently.

If you’re interested in trying them. Use this link to order a set from Amazon. Permanent Marker, Brush Tip, Black, Dozen If you order from this link, Amazon will give a small portion of the price to support AMOKArts.

Yesterday’s post was inked with the Sharpie Brush Tip Marker.