Distorted Vision

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How easy is it to distort God's vision for our lives... A few weeks ago now, my bestie and I decided to paint which was totally out of my comfort zone. I was so excited on the way to Hobby Lobby to get paint because this was an idea God had given me in prayer. That morning one of my favorite clients and friend came that later that afternoon unbeknownst to her she challenged me to do something that I had not done before!! Well, will you look at God!? So my bestie and I discussed along the ride what we'd paint, straightaway I knew I wanted to paint whatever God laid on my heart. The moment I stood in front of this plethora of acrylic paints God showed me an image that I would attempt to recreate. We get home, set up, and I am ready to go for it. Somewhere along the way, I started second-guessing the image that I was sure God has shown me. I began to say to myself surely I wasn't achieving this realistic brushstroke effect because I was not qualified to paint, this was not my skill. 😞

Picture me sitting in front of a standard-sized dining room table looking down upon this canvas discussing with God in my heart how I had tried my best to achieve a replica of what He'd shown me. Frustrated, I left the table. When I returned, now viewing this painting from a different angle, again, I said Lord "this cannot be it"! At this point I'm over it, I had given up. I decided to take a photo with my phone of this painting to send to my friend I mentioned earlier, right after, I turned the canvas around to my bestie to get her feedback. I was crushed-- LOL 😅, she absolutely did not describe the photo God had shown me. That was all I needed to solidify making the craziest decision to blackout the canvas. I thought I could just start over, I was sadly mistaken. This painting was truly ruined. Later that day, while sending the photo to my friend, I realized that looking at the canvas from the angle that I was holding in the photo taken on my phone was exactly the image I had seen. 😲 I was devastated! It was at that moment that I realized I allowed the enemy to talk me out of my blessing! 😓

This was such a powerful lesson that I am still thanking God for! It's so easy to self-sabotage. It's so easy to distort God's vision based on your perception. It didn't look good to me... What we see often determines our perception. Perception is heavily dependent on our heart's posture in any given situation. Whether it's good or bad, how we decide is based on what we're seeing. But God reminded me that He created me, He knew me first before I was formed in my mother's womb. He reminded me that He showed me the image because He knew that my members would know exactly what to do to achieve what He'd desired of me. But I told myself that this could not be what God wanted because I didn't believe I was talented or skilled enough to produce this. This hit home for me in such a deep way. I began to see the countless amount of times that I had held up what God was releasing to me because I expected God's vision to be a replica of the one I had created in my mind. Though I am only left now with a photo of the painting of an image God had shown me, I have a testimony that will never be forgotten!

I hope you enjoyed my testimony come back soon!

-- Tash 💜