The Value of Art

My child routinely brings me drawings and paintings and little things she has made for me. I have a fridge covered in her art. I have shoeboxes stuffed with her drawings and her beaded, painted, pipe cleaner creations. They have no practical use, but their value is immeasurable. Why? Because they are expressions of my child’s love.

When I write or paint or play music, I’m simply imitating my Creator in my childlike way. Of course, there is usually an echoing American voice in the back of my mind wondering if my creation might be the next media phenomenon destined to shake my culture’s collective conscious. (The voice sounds like the male announcer on movie trailers—you know the voice. It’s very convincing.) But my foremost goal is to use a creative outlet to make something for my Father.

When my stories are read by the world, the literati may see a waste of ink and the corporations may see no potential for profit. When I play bass, I may feel small comparing myself to other players in this savant-stuffed music mecca. But if I am truly writing or playing to praise my God, the point is not whether the art I produce has worldly use. The point is whether my creation has eternal value.

My God had all of my days written in His book before I lived one of them. My God knows my thoughts and my habits and every word on my tongue before I speak it. My God knit me together while I was in my mother’s womb. No matter how immensely I may love my child, I can still only love her with a fraction of the love my God has for me. And that lets me know that my creations have value to Him.