The Evangelizing Artist

     In the winter of 1980, a coworker of mine invited me to an art show he was doing. He was displaying and selling the pictures he painted in the walkway of a strip mall. The location was a row of stores located in one big building with a glassed-in walkway in front of them. This was in Casper, Wyoming, in the United States. As it was winter in Wyoming, it was a cold but sunny day out.

     I had no money to buy anything, but I had told him that I would come. So, I arrived there. Walking across the parking lot I could feel the ice crunching under my feet. Once inside the walkway, I could see him sitting in a chair surrounded by his display of art. I quickly saw his pictures were all scenery pictures. Living in Casper at the base of the Rocky Mountains there was plenty of scenery to be painted. His paintings were very good.

     There was no one else around, and I asked him if it had been busy. He told me it hadn’t been. In fact, I am not sure if anyone else was in the shopping center. The place was quiet. We then talked a bit about his artwork. I told him about members of my family who could paint, but I did not have the skills that they had. Then it happened. He skillfully changed the conversation. He started talking to me about God.

     At that time, I would have told you that I was a Christian. I prayed, but I didn’t know much about the Bible, including what God said much about anything. I had seen the movies “The Ten Commandments” and “The Greatest Story Ever Told”, but we were not a church going family. Our family stopped going to church when I was around four years old. I was young. I thought I knew everything about life, and yet, I didn’t know the most important things about life.

    As he began to evangelize, I immediately got defensive. He tried to talk to me about salvation, and I put up a wall of resistance. I remember he was getting very frustrated, because he was trying to reach me with the good news. I continued to resist. By the time I left, I am sure he felt defeated, and he most likely thought that I was lost.

     In 1999, I was baptized and I joined a church. My relationship with God has grown, but 29 years had passed since that conversation with the artist. It was one of many experiences that stuck with me over the years, times when God was reaching out to me through others.  It took a long time for me to catch on. My coworker was disappointed that day, but he was one of the first people to really reach out to me.

     There will be times when you reach out to share the Gospel, and some of those times you will feel like you failed. Remember though it is God’s message, and sharing his message is never wasted. He will do with it as he wills. Our job is simply to share it with others.

     One day, I will meet my coworker in Heaven. That day we will both rejoice, because he was part of my journey to know the Living Savior.

 

For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son! – John 3:16

 

May God Bless You,

Layman Ray