Little Noticings

It’s 2:35pm on a Tuesday afternoon, and I’m driving home from a productive morning at the local library (they now serve coffee and don’t mind the risk of spillage on the books). It’s a little warm, but not warm enough for aircon, so the window is down and my hand is car-surfing a small flow of cool air onto my face. That smell of warm steering wheel and slightly heated interior is still fading, but the mood is high and I’m looking forward to a quiet evening in with my family.

I have a spare five minutes, so I give myself permission to take a small detour, driving through streets I didn’t know existed and allowing myself the freedom to find little nuggets of gold in unknown places.

Turning into streets and not knowing where they’re going to end up is a small slice of exploratory freedom in an otherwise ordinary day. And this suburb has absolutely exploded over the past four years while I’ve been overseas. When I left, there were fields and fields of farmland that have rather quickly been turned into suburban neighborhoods. There was a school located far back from the city in one of those old farm fields, and now, upon my return, I find it surrounded by a little mall, a beautiful library, and a neighborhood of townhouses. What a difference a few years can make.

Sometimes my exploratory drives take me out to the countryside, but to get there now you have to drive a few minutes further. Out there, the country roads still thrive, surrounded by lush fields with the occasional farm shed popping up. Somehow the hum of cicadas still finds its way over the engine noise to my ears. It’s easier to breathe out there sometimes.

But that’s the cost of industrial growth. We lose some of the country expanse and the wide-open air, but we gain housing, cafes, art galleries, and supermarkets. We trade space for accessibility to modern comforts. We just drive a little further for the space, the air, and the grassy knolls.

Industry, culture, and growth all eat space. We always lose something when we forfeit space for industry. And this is especially poignant to me because, as a creative, space has always played an important role in my work.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be physical space, either. Creatives are meant to enter the space between people and learn how to express it. We’re meant to dig down into the space between opposing ideas and find the common ground. We are meant to uncover the wordless reasons beneath ideas and their clash and express them through paint or word or lens. It’s a true gift to do that.

A creative’s job is to go out into the space and report back on it, to remind the world that there is a reason for space, that there is thinking to be done there. There are answers to the universe in the spaces. We see it in the way artists apply space to their work. Much of the work of a creative is knowing what to do with space and when to apply it. Some of the greatest works of art must sit with a lot of space around them so the idea can breathe. Think of those works on display in world-class museums and galleries. Then think of how the art feels when you’re viewing it surrounded by a pressed crowd of people, as opposed to wandering into an empty room where a painting sits luxuriously by itself on a wall for you, and you alone, to see.

“A Christian creative’s job is to report back on that space within the context of what God has already told us. ”

For a creative, space is important.

However, for a Christian, the job is slightly more nuanced.

A Christian creative’s job is to report back on that space within the context of what God has already told us. And I cannot impress upon you strongly enough how important that caveat is.

Take, for example, the twelve spies that Moses sent into Canaan when they were first on the edge of the Promised Land. They were sent out to take a bearing on the land and report back what they had found. They reported that there were giants living there, that the fruit was massive, and that they looked like grasshoppers in the sight of the people there. In light of their experience, they were recommending that perhaps they shouldn’t all go in. If this were any ordinary situation, if they were simply being sent out to scout and relay back their experience, the reports they brought back would have been fine, logical even. The leader would have reassessed his decision to go into that land and adjusted the plan accordingly.

Here’s the problem, though. God had already told them that they would take the land. God had already told them the land would be theirs. So their job was not simply to scout. Their job was to look at what was currently true, what they could see with their eyes, assess it within the context of what God had already told them, and fill the space between those two things with faith and with words.

What a powerfully different expectation. It’s almost prophetic, except it could also simply be faith and obedience.

And I’ve heard stories of this happening before, much closer to home.

When my husband was younger, he believed he was dumb and less intelligent than some of his classmates, and sadly, some of his teachers quietly agreed. He mucked around in class, was disengaged and generally disruptive. Eventually, they gave up trying to pull anything more out of him. If spies were going into that ‘land’ they would have reported back that he was unmotivated, underperforming, with not much potential.

And perhaps, if that had been the final word spoken over him, that is exactly who he would have become.

But someone stepped into the space. A friend’s mum saw something different. She saw curiosity and intelligence where others saw distraction and laziness. He quit school and she homeschooled him alongside her kids for two years. And she spoke different words over him. She told him he wasn’t dumb. She told him he was capable. She told him he was smart.

She looked at what was currently true and chose not to let that be the truest thing.

She filled the space between what was visible and what was possible with faith and with words.

And it changed the trajectory of his life.

This is the difference between simply reporting on giants and calling out a promised land. One agrees with what appears to be. The other sees what could be, with what God says is.

So with these understandings in mind, I truly believe that as Christian artists, we must look at what is currently true, place it beside what God has already told us, and fill the gap between the two with faith. What a powerful gift that would be to the world.

However, it relies on two things.

1. We must go out into the spaces to see.

Those spies had to enter dangerous territory and scout the land. They went ahead of the people with little knowledge of what they were walking into. They had to faithfully and honestly report what was happening. That meant they couldn’t just pretend to go, looking in from afar. They had to actually step into new and potentially dangerous environments in order to report back.

And we must do the same. In fact, Jesus’ final instructions to His gathered followers were a call to go out. It’s what we have so aptly labeled the Great Commission.

2. We must know what God has already told us.

I’m not saying He’s going to smite us and cause us to wander in the wilderness until we die if we get this wrong — there are some perks to living in the 21st century. I do think we live in a different season than the old spies, one of grace. But knowing what God has already asked of us gives strength and context to our words and our creative endeavors, even when those things seem well out of reach.

We need to enter spaces knowing the promises, knowing the truths, knowing the character of God, and being able to draw a line between what is and what will be. That is our calling as those who are sent out.

There will always be giants. The land ahead of us will always confront us with its challenges. But I don’t think that’s the weightier task. The weightier task is holding firm to the vision God has set before us, calling it out ahead of us, lighting the way with small buds of faith.

Calling things that are not as though they were.

Because sometimes the difference between wandering and entering in, between believing you are foolish and discovering you are capable…

…is someone willing to stand in the space and speak what God sees.

In the end, I hope that is where you’ll find me. Out front. Standing in the space between what is and what will be.