The question, “Is this a good thing to do? Is this a bad thing to do?” is a thought occupies my mind too often. It is as if I am asking for permission, hoping for a blessing, a path without risk, without pain of consequence or trade-offs. If only I could divine God’s will and follow it precisely, and thereby ensure that my path is completely pure and blessed. But is that reality? No.
The basic issue is that I don’t think God thinks so discretely. As much as we might talk about God’s Plan or God’s Will, I’m less and less certain that God has such a specific end result in mind. He seems happy to let us improvise, while providing guidance, feedback, and encouragement along the way. He wants to see us fulfill ourselves and our potentials. God is the art teacher, and we are his bumbling, if well-intentioned students. We want to create something that is good, that we can be proud of, and the better our contact with God, the better we do at that. Yet we are the ones who must pick up the paintbrush and start painting.
Why do anything instead of nothing? The best answer seems to be, “because we have to.” Or at least, “because we are called to.” We cannot show up to class each day and stare inertly at the blank canvas for fear of making mistakes. We exist, we are enrolled in this course, and evidently, this is good.
In my experience, good things come expansion, from making ourselves more of who we are. Shrinking, we fail ourselves and we fall short of our purpose. Isolation, inaction, unfulfilled potential…all of these things are a crime against ourselves, maybe even a crime against God. When we live that way, shrinking away from the duty of “being,” we feel these consequences: Loneliness, aimlessness, anxiety, depression… All of these are feelings of being “less alive.” Living thus, we diminish God’s creation, us.
God the art teacher does not grade based on the final result, whether or not we have produced a masterpiece. He grades, as many art teachers do, on effort and participation. If we show up to class each day and paint our hearts out, we get an A. Even if our paintings are clumsy and amateurish, at least they are ours, and we grow less clumsy and amateurish each day that we show up.
Does this give concrete answers about how to live, what to paint? Maybe in a vague, good-enough kind of way. We are left to do our best, and to fill out our own scorecard. Whether our lives are unfolding favorably or unfavorably is largely up to our own interpretation. If you like your painting, great. If you don’t like it, try to make something you feel better about.
Like any good teacher, God will not tell you exactly what to paint and how to paint it. He may recommend exercises to help you develop into the painter that can better manifest your inner world onto the canvas. But He won’t paint it for you. If He did, it wouldn’t be yours, and there wouldn’t be much point in you taking the class.
“There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.” I think that Bob Ross line is so well-known because it resonates at the existential level we all struggle with. Instead of asking, “What am I supposed to do with my life? What if I make a mistake?” try not to worry so much. Just keep painting.