As artists, we're naturally introspective. It's in our nature to find out what's in our nature. We are constantly looking to draw from the well of our souls, always looking to find a place that's deeper, a spring more pure. But what do we find when we get there? The artist finds himself in the dangerous prospect of realizing one's inherent depravity. This is of course why so much of art, music, poetry and literature reveals the worst of who we are rather than the best. When was the last time you heard someone singing a song about how much their parents loved them, or an artist singing about a spouse that they've maintained and cultivated a serious and solid relationship with? It sounds ridiculous, but probably only because we've seen so little of it (or not done very well). Most times, those sweet love songs are about someone who eventually falls out of the picture. Six months later, another song is released describing the pain of that broken relationship. It's just more tangible evidence of how fleeting our emotions are, how fickle we can be, and in the end how uncommitted we are to anything but ourselves. We are inherently selfish. This is also why so many artists are substance abusers. Once we dig into the reality that is deep in the cloisters of who we are, it's not the easiest place to remain. And so many of us, not knowing how to ease that pain, turn to drugs, sex or whatever vice is readily available. This kind of self-flagellation is also a stroke of that inherent selfishness too; the inability to service anything or anyone but ourselves and our pain.

So how does the artist stay afloat when he/she is constantly diving down to the depths of their being and trying to bring these enormous boulders to the surface? There is no answer to that question. It is and will always remain a dangerous and never fully cathartic experience. The myth for artists is that this kind of behavior and soul searching is a complete and true remedy to their problems.

And of course art is a remedy of sorts, but quite often the process of that extraction - the explication of self - becomes a new problem, and a cycle begins. The creation of art, the work and energy that pours into taking something out of yourself and putting into something else does give a satisfaction, and it can be cathartic if the weight of it is relinquished. But who are we to relinquish it completely? Do we really have the depth of strength to heal ourselves?

Art is a partial release, but it's also a dangerous journey. And many times this journey creates a new burden - the burden of self. There's something about this action, about the expression of something so deep inside you that is depressing. There's this feeling of being chained to pain.

And the artists' natural reaction then is to journey on again and find a way to express the burden that is the very journey back into one's self. And henceforth, the cycle: the pain, the expression, and then the new expression of the pain that was the previous expression and so on.

So if there's nothing that can make this any easier, if our own inherent depravity cannot be lessened while we journey to the depths of it, what can we do? If there's no remedy for the artist, nothing that can ease the pain of the journey to know and express oneself and share that lostness, is there then any kind of hope? Why write all this if there's not something we can do?

What we can do is start to replace the depravity, the lostness, the self-loathing, and the deep hole inside us with something else. We can fill it with truth. We can fill it with God...with Christ...with the Word. For those who don't know Christ, who don't know the truth and fulfillment of hope in Christ, this can begin to make the journey into oneself fulfilling, hopeful and less depressing. For believers, because the truth of who we are as lost sheep will never diminish, the greater truth - that Christ can live in us and through us and that our lives can be better - will become a more potent expression in art because it will contain the same need and lostness that all artists express, but it will also contain the hope of new life.

Think of the Psalms...here we have David, who God says was a "man after his own heart." But we see over and over again David is a wreck of a man. He's an adulterer, a murderer, and at times a lost individual - unsure, scared, selfish, and with lack of direction - but in all his psalms of despair, in all his genuine cries of shame and wretchedness as he looks into his heart, he not only sees himself, but he also sees the one who made him. From Psalm 139, he writes... "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I fell from your presence. If I go up to the heavens, you are there; f I make my bed in the depths, you are there...for you created my inmost being...?"

In everything that David and the other Psalmists say, these artists, poets and musicians see their troubles, their struggles and the hopeless despair that can wreck earthly life, but because they are God-seekers, artists who not only strive to know themselves but also to know who they can be with God in them, they can express the hope and the promise of salvation. Psalm 71..."though you have made me see troubles, you will restore my life again." Psalm 18...rejoice in the joy of your salvation." Psalm 40:3..."he put a new song in my mouth."

It's doubly impacting because it is both sides of the truth coin. There is no loss of integrity in what they have found as they've journeyed to look into their interior makeup, because they've found the same despair that we find, that Ozzy Osbourne finds, and that DaVinci, Van Gogh and Tarantino have found. It's truth. That stuff really is inside us. But the other truth is the hope, and the direction of these hopeless pleas to the One who can not only hear them, but also respond in a way that meets our needs. And in this way, art is worship because it acknowledges God as the redeemer, the hope of salvation and as the only thing in the universe that has the power to save and satisfy. He can relinquish the weight of those boulders. Art is universal and everyone can hear it, gain personal meaning and then respond, but who can heal the pain from where it comes? Only God can. There's hope in that and we can experience it and express it IF we fill ourselves with it. Psalm 63:5..."My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you."

Psalm 107:9..."for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things...he brought them out of the darkness and the deepest gloom and broke away their chains...he sent forth his word and healed them...let them sacrifice thank offerings and tell of his works with songs of joy."

It is my contention that as we cry out to God in our art, in the depths of our darkness, he will also heal the wounds where this art comes from, and then from that we will have songs of joy...we'll have new art, a new expression - a joy that is full of passionate and honest intensity.

Psalm 30:11..."You turned my wailing into dancing...that my heart may sing to you and not be silent."

So how did the psalmists get to this point? How can we express the hope of God and not feel trite? As the weight of the hurt inside us is being expressed, how can we, with any real integrity, start to write, sing and paint the hope of God? It's not about filling the form of worship songs, or Psalms or some predetermined mode of expression. It's about what's inside you, and that's the way it has to be if it's to be the most powerful kind of expression - it has to come from deep within. It has to be all your own, and the only way to do it is to spend as much time filling yourself with God as you do expressing yourself. You have to spend time experiencing God.

The best and most obvious way to spend time experiencing God is through Scripture. It's our most supreme pathway to hearing from God. The bible holds his truth out in plain form and it is his most direct and tangible communication to us. It is a truth that is at your access at all times, and for anyone, especially an artist, there can be no more potent and permeating way to fill oneself with the truth of God than to do it through his Word. As artists - as believers who express themselves through art - we are obligated to fill ourselves with the one who filled this earth with himself. We have to. It's vital to our art, and to those who receive our expressions, because if we don't, the outcome is a kind of art and a kind of response that operates out of hopelessness. What goes in is what comes out, and when you look deep inside, you'll see what you've been filling yourselves with. But it's not that we have to try to purposefully express our art about God, but it's the idea that as we fill ourselves with his truth, He will naturally make his presence emerge through it.

So the thing is this...as artists, as those who take on the task of reaching deep, reaching far and wide, pulling together mud, clay and sticks and attempting to make something beautiful out of it, we must realize that there is nothing more beautiful than God. There is nothing more beautiful than what God can do in us, and what God has done ALL AROUND US. FILL yourself with Him. If we are to express art from the depths of ourselves and the depths of the world around us, we can find God and access the kind of divine inspiration that can create an art that will know no bounds, the kind of art that will speak potently and infinitely.