A long time ago, when I was just a little kid, I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. I wanted to make art and tell stories. I used to love to do puppet shows and ventriloquism, and all kinds of stuff, largely to entertain my sister and my cousins. As I grew, the storytelling part became problematic. Years of being a human target in school drove my desire to stand before people and tell my stories deep into my psyche, to the point where public speaking terrified me, and I largely forgot about it. That part of my dream died because no way could I speak in public. So I decided I would be a professional artist. 

That dream died too. Oh it fought valiantly, and there were some bright shining moments, but eventually I was reduced to doing things that had some artistry to them, but they really didn’t allow me to be overly creative. I told myself I was still an artist, but most of what I was doing really didn’t feel very artistic. I earned a living designing things, most of which involved making things fit into existing formats, which was about as fulfilling as it sounds. I still made some art on my own, and tried to promote it, and yes I got some really fun freelance work, but never enough to strike out on my own, and it often felt like something was missing. 

The struggle to hit my artistic goals was taking it’s toll, My priorities got all out of whack, and I suffered for a while. Then one day something weird happened. God called me to ministry. The fact that by now I was pretty terrified of public speaking made this seem that I was missing God’s point. Speaking is, after all, a pretty large part of ministry. I started to work in youth ministry as a volunteer. I began to feel led to use art as a teaching tool and some of the pieces began to fall into place, but something was still missing. I was bivocational, and earning most of my living in my design work. This was problematic, not because there was anything wrong with being bivocational, but I really think it came down to a matter if identity. Deep down inside I still identified as a professional artist. 

It all started to come together when I began to realize art was not to be my profession. It was to be a tool for me to use to communicate God’s Word. It was never designed to be my career. I began to realize that what I had desired since childhood was God’s design for my life. I was created to make pictures and tell stories. No, as a child I didn’t realize I would be telling His story, but that was His design for me nonetheless. Since I have been using art in ministry, I have found my sweet spot—the thing God created me to do and the person God created me to be. Does your identity line up with God’s call? What were your earliest dreams? Could those desires give you a clue to what it is that you want to do and finally what’s your sweet spot?