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The Thriving Christian Artist - After 30 years of making Art, God wanted me to tell you this · Shine FM

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, after more than 30 years of being an artist and making my work and selling it and building a whole business around it, there's really one thing I wish that I really understood at the very beginning.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, it's probably not what you think.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't get that one thing settled in your heart, you can end up self-sabotaging everything else that you're trying so hard to build.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that intimately because that's exactly what I did.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hey, my friend, listen, if we've not had a chance to meet yet, I'm Matt Tommy.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh every week I'm here on the channel and helping Christian creators, maybe just like you, to walk in clarity and confidence and creative freedom in Christ.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if that sounds like you, make sure that you like this video, subscribe, and of course, let me know in the comments what's going on in your creative journey right now.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I really stepped back and started saying, okay, I'm going to do this professionally in 2009.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to make and sell my art.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm going to do this thing, I'm going to build it.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I had, I had all the same fears that everybody else had.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was wondering if people were going to really buy my work.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know if I was good enough, right, to start making money from it.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'd sold a few things over the years.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I didn't know if my skill level was there.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, because I'm a Christian, and you may feel this too, you know, it throws this whole other layer on top of it, right?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, God, did you really call me to do this?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Am I hearing your voice correctly?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you actually going to provide for me?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Or is this just selfish?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, if you're not careful, you can spend your entire creative life trying to just answer those questions and struggle with all that by your circumstances.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so you think, well, you know, if my art sells, praise God, I'm called.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: But then if it doesn't, you start thinking, oh, maybe I miss God, maybe I'm not called, or if somebody loves your work, you start feeling confident.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: But if somebody rejects it, you start questioning everything again.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, I know that again, intimately, because that is an exhausting way to live.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I lived on that roller coaster for a lot of years.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And somewhere along the way, thankfully, the Lord began to show me something that completely changed the way I saw my art and my business and provision and really my whole creative life.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I began to realize that being an artist was God's idea first before it was ever my idea.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, listen, I know that may sound really simple, but when that truth got like really gut level deep down inside of me, it changed everything because I started realizing I wasn't trying to talk God into blessing my dream of being an artist.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't trying to create some destiny for myself as an artist and then drag God into it, like, would you please bless this?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm gonna, everything's gonna fall apart if you don't.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, I started realizing he's the one that made me and he designed me like this.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he's the one that put creativity inside of me.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he gave me the desire to make and to see things the way I see.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what makes me an artist.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so he just started showing me, you know, I didn't have to walk with all the pressure and carry all the pressure of making this whole thing happen on my own that I've been carried my whole life.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was him that was inviting me into his story instead of me trying to drag him into my story.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you, maybe that's a revelation right now, but that was huge for me.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I love it in Ephesians 2.10 where it says that we're God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand for us to walk in.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about that for a minute.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Before you ever made anything or did anything creatively that you do, God made you.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Before you ever had a vision for your creative life or a dream in your heart, God had a dream.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: God had a vision for you.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And before you ever started wondering, you know, how to make this whole thing of being an artist work, God had already been preparing things for you to walk in.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, I love that language that Paul uses there.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: He says, we are his workmanship, his poema, because as artists, you know, we're always thinking about our work, the workmanship we're producing, right?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: The the painting, the sculpture, the book, the song, the writing, whatever it is, all the things that we're making with our hands and with our voices.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: But listen, but before God was interested in the workmanship that was coming out of our hands, he was interested in you.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And when you begin there, when you start with his intention, everything else starts getting put back into the right order.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because now I'm not trying to prove myself as an artist.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to create because, you know, I don't know who I am.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not selling my work to try to prove to everybody else that God really called me.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm selling because I'm stewarding what God put in me.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm creating because I'm stewarding what God put in me, that he called me to do that.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not, I'm not hustling for money and provision and opportunities and all that kind of stuff and terrified that if I stop pushing so hard that everything's gonna fall apart.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: No, I can show up faithfully and work diligently with him and learn the business and take the risk and at the same time trust that God is my provider.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, those things are not opposites in the kingdom.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it didn't mean that I didn't, you know, have to learn the practical stuff.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Of course I did.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I had a lot of years of learning how to sell art and develop my unique creative voice and build relationships and become excellent in my craft, you know, all the things that are a part of stewardship.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what changed, and here's what I want to get in your heart today.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I stopped doing these things trying to prove that I was called, prove that I was an artist.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I began doing them because I already knew that I was.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, that is a huge, huge difference.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Jesus says in John 15 that apart from me, we can do nothing.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And years ago, I used to hear that with a lot of pressure, you know, stay connected to God or everything's gonna fall apart, right?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I I don't I don't hear it that way anymore.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: What I hear now is an invitation of a loving father.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Jesus there is essentially saying, you were never designed to do this alone.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you don't have to wake up every morning, carry the weight of your entire future, manufacture every opportunity by yourself.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have you don't have to know what the next five, 10, 20 years are gonna look like.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can abide with him and listen and respond in faith and trust him with the parts that you can't even see yet.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, that understanding, that heart posture for me changed completely the way that I show up in the studio and how I handle seasons of of slower sales and the way I thought about provision and open doors and opportunities.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: But most importantly, it changed the question that I was asking God all the time.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, instead of constantly asking, like, God, how do I make this thing work?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or God, I need a breakthrough, things are going down the toilet.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I quit all that, all that, all that fluster.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I just started asking every day, Father, thank you for this calling.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing today?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And how can I faithfully respond?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: What are what are you want to show me today?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want me to steward today?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Where are the next steps?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Where are the open doors you have for me?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, I promise you, after more than 30 years of doing this, I wish I could go back and sit down with a younger version of me and tell him that.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I could look me in the eyes and say, Matt, quit trying to carry something that God never asked you to carry by yourself.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: My friend, listen, you don't have to manufacture your calling and you don't have to force the future that God has for you.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to make God's idea happen in your life.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: You get to walk with him in it day by day.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, I really hope that's what you need to hear today.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're like me.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've been putting enormous pressure on yourself trying to make this art thing work, trying to make the money part of it work, trying to figure out whether you're doing enough, whether you're enough.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe the invitation for you today is, and maybe the invitation of the Lord is just to maybe he's just saying, come back to me.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Just to remember that it was my idea in the first place.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that I'm the one that made you.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that I'm the one that called you.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, from that place of identity and relationship and his love, just learn to faithfully steward everything that he's put in your hands.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you, that's where the freedom and that's where the peace is.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, that's exactly why I do what I do and created the Thriving Christian Artist Pathway, because I met so many Christian artists along the way who love Jesus deeply, but they're trying to piece together their creative life and their business completely on their own.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's stressing them out.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's making them want to quit.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one video here, one strategy there, one more Instagram hack.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and meanwhile, nobody's helping them put the whole thing together, especially from a kingdom perspective.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, understanding how to align with God and actually create with Him and learn to connect with the right people and build something that's sustainable and consistent for them.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: But that's exactly what the Thriving Christian Artist Pathway is designed to help you do.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So listen, if you're ready to stop trying, you know, piecing this the whole thing together by yourself and you'd like me to walk with you along with an incredible community of Christian artists from all over the world, you can click the link that's right below this video and find out more about the Thriving Christian Artist Pathway.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: I would absolutely love to have you in that community and walk with you along your journey.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, I pray right now for my friend, Lord, that's watching.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: God, I thank you that you brought him here by divine appointment.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I thank you that even though uh we may walk years on our own, Lord, even though you're drawing us, sometimes we just don't hear it.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: But God, I believe that right now, at this place and this time, Lord, you're the one that brought my friend here to hear this message, to just lay it all down and reconnect with your, with you, your purposes, your plans, your time frame, your pace of their journey.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, I just bless them right now with eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to receive every good thing that you have for them without the striving and without the stress and without the anxiety.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Father, I speak to anxiety right now in their heart and I say, Go in the name of Jesus.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: You have no right, you have no authority in the in the life of my friend right now.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And God, I lose peace.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Your word says, God, whatever we bind in heaven or bound on earth is bound in heaven.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever we loose on earth is loose in heaven.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Father, I bind a spirit of anxiety and fear and striving, and I loose peace and a greater revelation of sonship and the love of God in their life right now in Jesus' name.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, listen, let me know what God's speaking to you in this video.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I do what I do.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: God's called me to raise up an army of artists just like you.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to know what God's doing and and how we can be uh praying for you, support you in your journey.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, let me know if this video meant a lot to you, if God's speaking to you in anything that I said.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, would you do all the stuff?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm producing videos like this every week.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so like, subscribe, comment, do all the things.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, remember till next time, you were created to thrive.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.