The young woman looked at her painting, and wondered, "How could God ever use this?" Being in a Muslim country with a team of visual artists, she had been struggling to render the concept they had been asked to paint: "I am the door", those beautiful words of Jesus that invite us to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But she had painted a lock. The heavy, massive medieval kind, that looked impenetrable and imposing. How could this communicate – how could God take that which she really hadn't painted all that well in her opinion, and use it for His glory?
The old man strolled slowly through the open-air art gallery that had suddenly appeared in the plaza. He surveyed the beautiful pictures of doors and gates. But there was one, a lock. He stood stunned, as the revelation hit him – someone had just painted his life, his longing, his desperate condition of being locked out from the light. Light that he just knew was there for him, but had been so elusive in his own religious tradition. He knew in the moment he saw the painting, that the artist who painted it had the insight and wisdom he had been seeking his entire life.
The young woman approached the old man, and through interpretation asked him why he was staring spellbound at her meager painting. Through tears, the man said to her, "My entire life I have felt locked out from all God had for me. I can see it through the keyhole, but I can't get to it. Can you please tell me, what is the key that will unlock the door of my life, and let me run into the light of God?" The young woman at that moment had the privilege of sharing the love of Christ, right there on the sidewalk. The Holy Spirit had used her humble painting to unravel this man's heart, and draw him to the Father heart of God.
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