A few weeks ago, I wrote this blog post - and I promised I'd follow up on it. The blog post said this:
"I am a Christ follower and an artist. And as both, I think it's easy for me to fall into certain traps. I often wonder if other artists feel the same way. I'm not saying that only artist struggle with these things, I don't think it's a unique list that only a certain group of people can relate to. At our core, we all struggle with pride, self worth, and we put on masks at some point or another. Here's a little sampling of what I mean. This list is just the tip of the iceberg, and if you'd like to add your own - feel free to jump in."
Then the first confession I made was this:
"I am harder on myself than I should be - I compare myself to others and find myself lacking. I wish I had a voice like that person, could write songs like some other person, and had the stage presence of somebody else."
I think most artists (and most everyone) struggle with this - it's called comparing and I do it all the time. There's absolutely nothing wrong with admiring, celebrating, and being challenged by the talent or ability of someone else. The problem with comparing is there's always going to be someone that's better than me at something - isn't that a relief?
I don't think comparing is wrong - it's what I compare that can become the issue. It's so easy for me to get caught up in superficial things: talent, ability, gifting. Like I just said - I'm always going to come up short compared to someone - so superficial comparison is always going to leave me frustrated!
So what I've been working on as I fight this battle is this - if I'm going to compare / challenge myself I want to do it in areas that matter. So I look at the lives of people around me and here's what I see: I want a passion for the gospel like my friend Matt Papa, I want a heart for the nations like my friend Ken McLemore, I want to love people like my friend Kevin Bragg, I want to have the integrity of my friend Scott Goodspeed, the honesty of my friend Scott Spruill, and the joy and laughter of my friend Joe Blount. Not to mention the great heroes of the faith like Oswald Chambers, Charles Spurgeon, and C.S. Lewis - their lives are immensely challenging. Musical ability matters some, character matters more.
So if you struggle like I do - let me encourage you to look beyond the superficial and look for people that will challenge you to be more like Christ.
1 comments:
I totally agree Micah. I struggle specifically with the putting on of masks like you mentioned, as well as other things but this is the one that I will pick to mention. For one, I am grateful that the Lord has blessed me with so many different unique aspects that make up my personality and that make up "Charlie." However I struggle only showing people the part of me that I think that they will like. For example I enjoy music, sports, and chick flicks. I struggle with putting on those different hats to impress certain people. If I am hanging out with musicians I put on the music hat, with sport fanatics my sport hat, and the female gender my chick flick hat. The problem with this is that my musician friends, sport friends, or my female friends don't know the real "Charlie" and all that that entails. I need to trust God more to throw myself out there and to stop worrying about what other people will think and to work on just being "Charlie" no matter what people think. Thanks Micah for the forum to share. God bless.
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