In college, I was supposed to write a review of the play Waiting for Godot. I am sure it was wonderful, but frankly at that age my only take away was that Godot was a metaphor for God. I was also pretty sure the waiting (and the play) would last forever. With my apologies to Samuel Beckett for panning his play, I think we may just be spending too much of our time in our own production of Waiting for God.
At some point in their lives, most people develop a sense of missed importance. Most of us in our heart of hearts know that given a chance we could win American Idol, Dancing with the Stars and/or be discovered at the Mall by a casting agent. We know we were meant for something more exciting, more important than the normal mundane lives we are living. We are even training our children that way. “You can be anything you want to be,” is spoken over and over again to children all over this country. So we all sit and wait for someone to discover the greatness within us and introduce us to the life we know we were meant to live.
Our daughter had quite a flair for the dramatic when she was younger (I can’t imagine from whom she inherited that trait!). At one point, I warned our pediatrician I would probably bring my daughter in one day with an arm that had been broken for a couple of days. I told the doctor I wasn’t abusive. It was just that every tiny injury our daughter had at that age was most definitely “a broken something, from which I may probably die” (pronounced with much wailing and gnashing of teeth). The pediatrician smiled and said it was a common story from the parents of her patients.
You would think encouraging children’s artistic talent would be so easy every Church is doing it well. Not really. Coloring sheets really do very little to develop artistic talent in anyone. In fact, I have known many adult artists who still struggle with how to use their gifts for God.