Scott Erickson is...ah, words fail me.... Let's just say that if you do art and do church, he's someone you need to meet. He has several really good videos (see? words failing again) on his website. Each one is about 10 minutes long, inspirational, and professional. The one video I am sharing below is from a talk he gave at Multnomah University this month. Wisdom tells me this is not the video to share here. I should go with a short, power punch. But, no. I'm sharing this one because he describes how he was called to be a Christian artist and his reaction was so very like mine. It is near the beginning of his talk, the part where he talks about Captain Planet.

Yeah, he's talking about me, the girl with the heart ring. Is that you too? It can be a difficult thing to accept the task God has given you. I guess I see it like this: an airplane needs wings to fly, an engine, etc. These things are pretty much what define a big shiny object as an airplane. The church is the church because of people who care for children and seniors, who run the food pantry and organize friends to mow lawns, serve meals and run support and study groups. Those are the things that make us recognizable as Church. However, I know a few pilots who have told me stories of planes that crash due to a faulty 13 cent O-ring. Not that the O-ring failed and the plane came down, but that the failed O-ring led to other problems, which led to more problems which became catastrophic. Those O-rings are there for a reason and they need to do the job they were made to do.

It's not that I feel like I am worthless. I don't need any emails shoring up my sense of self-worth. It is that I asked the Lord what He was calling me to, and His answer wasn't what I had hoped. His answer was, "I love you too much to give you the jobs you think you want. Just because I didn't assign you to the (insert-any-significant-job-title-here)-Team, doesn't mean I didn't pick you. And besides, people aren't significant because of what they do, but because I AM."

I'm learning that His way is better. Because He IS.