It’s a command, it’s scriptural and it’s really hard to do sometimes. We get frustrated, aggravated, hurt, etc. and the stress of overriding all those emotions can be quite difficult. And yet…
What is gained by anger? What is gained by lashing out? People are very rarely fought into changing their minds, and when you live your life to represent Jesus, the ramifications of our speech become even more important.
As an example. I made a mistake today, I listened to the news and some of the stories just aggravated me. So much so that I came home and wrote a lengthy and rather creative blog post… and then I deleted it. Why? Because I advocated speaking the truth in love, but some of what I wrote was not very loving. I can do better. I must do better.
Creatives, our world needs truth. Actually our world needs the One who is called The Truth. Did you ever consider that if John 14:6 is to be believed, (AND IT IS!) then Jesus is not just God incarnate, and not just love incarnate (because God is love) but He is also Truth incarnate. Ultimately speaking truth is speaking Jesus.
My other post was something I am starting to see as more and more troublesome. It was a reaction, a knee-jerk, reactionary, overreacting reaction. It was well-written, it was eloquent and it was a big part of the problem. Friends, I’ve grown weary of playing defense. I’ve grown weary of hearing something with which I disagree and then reacting to it. Instead I think we believers should go on offense. I think we need to create things that lovingly speak truth to power. I think we need to be making art with something to say. Work that reacts positively and gives our world a picture of something good, a picture of something better, a picture of real truth. A Picture of THE truth, reflecting the light of the world into our world.
Instead of always reacting to darkness, let’s just generate light.
Time to get creative.
AMOKArts 