About Artists 5 (Artists are MOODY!)

Artists are: MOODY!

Most artists I know are like thermometers, you know mercurial, changing moods like the mercury in a thermometer goes up and down.  Like a roller coaster many artists are either at the pinnacle of emotional giddiness or at the absolute bottom of a swirling sucking vortex of doom.  Artists seem to have a difficult time with the straightaway.  As artist, we tend to wear our heart on our sleeves.  You don’t have to guess our mood.

But I believe there is a great gift hidden in all of that.  In John 4:23, Jesus instructs the Samaritan woman that the time is here, now, when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.  I believe that artists have some sort of spiritual hook-up that we don’t really understand.  It’s not just an emotional thing emotion either, though it has deep emotional ties.  Artists are, by and large, very sensitive to emotion, mood, vibe whatever you want to call it, because, I believe, we have a built within us a kind of a spiritual superhighway if you will – a direct link to things of the Spirit, that allow us to navigate deep spiritual waters, to have a lasting impact on the environment around us.  When David played, it soothed Saul’s anxious mind and heart.  What a privilege that is!  I know it may seem difficult at times.  Artists can be very temperamental and subject to wide ranging moods, but that’s just a worldly by-product of what the real ultimate output from this gift is supposed to be.  

Artists are fashioned by God to understand mood/vibe/thing/whatever as a tool for preparing praise and worship, to be able to write and play the many textures and hues that minister to the heart of God.  As artists we feel the temperament of the congregation.  We can locate them emotionally and spiritually, which gives us insight into how to direct worship and praise so they may better enter in and worship the Father.

In all of this though, it’s strange to see worshippers, singers, Christian artists, players, whatever, get all bummed out and stay that way for long periods of time.  Have you ever noticed that?  Have you been there yourself?  The things is that as worshippers, we should know else that one of the reasons the Spirit of the Lord was upon Jesus (Isaiah 61) was to give us “the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness”.  I understand that clinical depression can be a very real and very serious mental and emotional illness and my comments are not meant to diminish such a condition.  But there’s a big difference between that, and just being “bummed out”.  Artists can get in the doldrums so quickly.  But I have seen that that is the exact moment we need to put on the garment of praise!  Lift your voice and sing to God!!  Pick up your instrument and begin to worship him!!!  When you feel the funk coming and trying to get on you, chase away the “bad juju” with the high praises of the Most High!!!!  Live it yourself.  Then you’ll be able to teach others how to do it.