Hi and welcome back to another week on the Chrissie Murphy Designs blog. I’ve been a bit absent lately, but all for a good reason. I’ve been doing a small training course with Matt Tommey. His course (called Artist’s Rise Up) is about understanding your place in the Kingdom as an artist. God reveals his beauty through His artists, so Matt’s course has been about discovering my place in the Army of Artists the Lord is building. During this time, I worked on this piece called Resonate which I’m going to be sharing about later in this post.
I’m actually going to be doing more training
Over the next few months, I will be continuing the training as I work my way into more of Matt’s teaching through his books. I have purchased:
1. Unlocking the Heart of the Artist
2. Creativity According to the Kingdom
3. Crafting your Brand
4. Created to Thrive
Right now I’m working through Unlocking the Heart of the Artist, and I am loving it so far! I want to give his teachings my full attention and devotion so I have chosen to sit my normal week to week activities to the side for the time being.
I apologise to anyone that might be inconvenienced by me doing so. Many of you know that creating with the Creator has always been my heart’s focus. Being provided an opportunity to deepen this through spiritual and personal development is something I just couldn’t pass up.
I’m gonna keep drawing though
I will continue to create and draw during this time (you can see me working on the Resonate piece with the Lord in this picture below). More than anything, I hope the fruit of this time ahead is something you are nourished by, and I look forward to sharing some parts of this journey with you.
Resonate
In my time journaling with the Lord a few weeks ago, the word Resonate was put into my heart. I’ve looked into it more and Resonate is defined as; to resound or cause to resound; to reverberate. We have all sorts of things that resonate within us, yet I believe the Lord was telling me that He wants to be the one that resounds and reverberates within us the most deeply.
In Exodus 19, the Lord descends upon Mount Sinai to deliver the ten commandments to Moses and the Israelite people. It’s a spectacle of power as He descends. So much so that the people of Israel become very afraid by what they are seeing. They seek Moses to be the mediator between them and the Creator because they fear that direct communication with the Lord will see them die.
Here the Creator wants to be the One who resonates with people, but the people are resonating with something else instead…. fear.
We all Resonate with something
In my time I have come to witness all sorts of things resonating within people. Fear and anxiety resonate big time with a lot of people. In the story above, it was fear that was resonating with the Israelite people. Fear was the sound reverberating within them causing them to believe communicating with the Creator would see them die.
I’ve seen the effects of shame resonating within people. It can cause self destruction and a desire to take yourself out because, the ability to overcome it becomes near on impossible for some people to envision. That’s what shame does, it belittles your vision of yourself.
I’ve seen and lived what happens when you allow pride to resonate deep within. Pride let’s you believe that you have the answers and that you know best, it inflates your thinking. But when something happens that challenges your thinking, and it goes on to win despite your beliefs, the deflation is painful. It’s often embarrassing and it can open a door giving shame a place to thrive.
The Lord’s wants none of that
The Lord knows these things, He’s God after all. He wants to spare us the shame of humiliation, or the pain of crippling anxiety, but He never forces his ways upon us, we always have free will. He wants to resonate within us, He’s a jealous God who wants to be the only thing resonating within us, because He knows how good it is for us to be free from the bondage of other things. But we need to choose to allow Him to be the voice we listen to. The choice is always ours.
A moment where He did Resonate on a mountain
In the New Testament again the Lord is on a mountain. This time He ascends it and He delivers His greatest message, the Sermon on the mount. This time people were drawn to Him and people resonated with Him. The principles of this sermon and the teachings of this message still resonate with many today.
It was His heart then and it’s still His heart today, to resonate with people. He hasn’t changed, His message is still the same, He loves you, wants the best for you and wants to be the one that reverberates and resounds within you.
The heart behind Resonate
Today I’ve shared the promptings I received for this piece from the Holy Spirit. I’ve shared what I sensed the heart of the Lord is towards people. I’ve tried to be faithful with my creative expression to what I sensed during my time with the Lord. This has been the heart behind Resonate. I allow Him to resonate in me, so He might work through me to resonate in you.
To do so though, takes courage and vulnerability. I can’t begin to tell you how scary it feels to open up so much about my Creative Process. But more than anything, I believe, very strongly, that doing so adds another dimension to what you see in a finished piece of work. My hope is that after reading posts like these, where I open up fully about my creative process that you see MORE. My hope is that He resonates within you and you’re blessed by it.
I’d love to hear how this piece of art may have spoken to you or how the Lord has used this post to Resonate in your life. Please leave me a comment below.
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Until next time, listen to your heart and sharpen your coloured pencils. A masterpiece awaits!
Bless you my friend
Chrissie xx
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