Devotion 374 - Frantic

I walked slowly.  Seeing someone’s bedroom seemed intimate and almost too private, but we pressed on and saw.

Then we strolled passed his drawings and his painting and then finally words he had written. 

I remembered my professor describing his artistic strokes as “frenetic.”  I have never forgotten that word.  It is almost the same in English as it is in French. 

One looks at the stroke, the hand connected to the arm and authored by a mind and heart that were by historic record often frantic.

  His works are neither peaceful nor restful.  They show a heart rarely tranquil.  In his thirty-seven years he lived in thirty-seven homes.  I wonder if his quest for peace, perhaps our quest for peace is really our search for home.

As Americans we are seeing more apathy in the church than virtually any other time in history.   By contrast, the underground church of Asia and the outdoor churches in the plains of Africa are on fire.

What has extinguished our fire?

When He said, “blessed are the poor in spirit,” was He describing the weakness of the wealthy?

I wonder when God peeks into the bedrooms of our souls, what strokes He sees.

Are you at peace?

Do you find rest down deep in your soul?

Are you content?

Do you find the rhythm of your life frantic?

When He sees the images of your spirit, is it broken?

Or have the gaps been filled with money, power, relationships, schedules and stuff?

How many of us daily contemplate going home.

Big or small, lovely or unlovely, full or empty, clean or messy, our homes get comfortable.  Our lives get busy.  Our spirits get frantic and we forget that this place we call life is not our home.

Van Gogh had been raised in church.  Until he learned to draw, he desperately lived as an impoverished preacher.  Mental illness ran through his body as greatly as talent ran through his fingers.

When he held a revolver to his chest at the age of thirty-seven, he had finished three version of arguably his most famous work, his bedroom.

He wanted to be home.

Do we?

Do we labor in prayer for coworkers that do not know Jesus?

Do we weep at the altar for family that has not accepted His forgiveness?

Do we speak His truth when it is inconvenient or hard?

Do we find Him in the small places or do we wait until the house is clean, the task done, the kids are grown, and life is less frantic?

When He looks at my bedroom, I don’t want to worry if the bed is unmade, the nightstand dusty or my clothes are on the floor.

I want to run after Him and not walk.  I want to seek the healing of others through the spreading of His grace.

I want to find myself frantic over my neighbor that does not know Jesus, not over my walls that need painting.

Our home is not here dear one.  We need to have a sign in the front yard of our souls that says “Jesus.”

 

"To try to understand the real significance of what the great artists, the serious masters, tell us in their masterpieces, that leads to God; one man wrote or told it in a book; another, in a picture."   

Vincent Van Gogh