The Thriving Christian Artist

The Gap Between Your Creative Calling & Confidence

• Matt Tommey: Artist, Best-Selling Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur and Artist Mentor

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What if the reason your art feels heavy isn’t skill, time, or tools—but the story you believe about your worth? We explore how a subtle “orphan mindset” drives perfectionism and fear, and how a renewed mind frees you to create from love rather than grinding for approval. The goal isn’t hype or hustle. It’s a grounded identity that makes room for joy, risk, and real growth in the studio.

We start by naming the gap: many artists trust that God is Creator and giver of gifts, yet sit down to paint or write and feel pressure instead of peace. That mismatch reveals an inner script—if the art fails, I’m a failure—that sabotages confidence. We unpack Romans 12:2 as a practical roadmap to change the script, moving from working for love to working from love. From there, we show how identity reshapes craft: you take bolder risks, experiment with curiosity, and price your work with clarity because you’re offering a gift, not begging for validation.

You’ll learn a simple alignment check to use the moment pressure rises: step back, breathe, ask God what He says about you and your piece, and speak that truth aloud. This small practice breaks perfectionism in real time and restores focus. We also map a larger reset—think of it like upgrading your creative operating system—so your defaults become peace, presence, and freedom rather than anxiety and comparison. Along the way, we share personal lessons, practical reframes, and a gentle invitation to a nine-week foundations course designed to help you renew your mind, dismantle lies, and build a thriving artist identity.

If this resonates, hit play, try the alignment check, and share your experience. For a deeper reset, follow the link to the foundations course and start building on bedrock. Subscribe, leave a review, and pass this to an artist who needs a lighter, freer way to create.

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SPEAKER_00:

Do you ever feel a burning desire to create something meaningful? But the moment you try to start fear and perfectionism end up completely paralyzing you? Well, listen, if that's you, you aren't lazy. You're just stuck in what I call like a gap between your calling and the confidence that God has for you as an artist. And so in today's video, I'm going to give you a really simple way to start closing that gap so that you can confidently be the artist that God created you to be while kicking that old fear and perfectionism to the curb. So if that sounds good, let's jump in. So here's what I've noticed after mentoring Christian artists for almost two decades now. Most artists have pretty good theology, right? We know that God is the creator. We know that God loves us. We know that we have creative gifts. But sometimes when we actually sit down to paint or write or sculpt or whatever it is that we do creatively, our reality doesn't always match our theology. Instead of the peace that we think we're supposed to be feeling, we end up feeling pressure. Instead of joy, we often feel the weight of needing to perform or make it perfect. I don't know if you can relate to that, but that was my story for a long time before I understood what I'm going to teach you today. See, the reason this happens is because many of us are still operating out of what I call an orphan mindset. See, an orphan mindset is first of all super sneaky. And it says, I've got to make something perfect so that I will be valuable. And if the art fails, then I'm a failure. And listen, that kind of pressure is crushing on anybody. And it really kills your creativity because your identity is on the line every time you pick up a brush or go in the studio. See, the enemy knows that if he can keep us stuck in fear and shame and confusion, we'll never be able to step into the fullness that God has for us as artists. And listen, that's exactly where he wants all of us as artists, paralyzed, not able to do what God's called us to do. But listen, thankfully, God's got a much better plan. See, the only way to bridge this gap is through what the Bible calls in Romans 12, 2, renewing your mind. In other words, you have to change the internal script that's playing over and over and over in your mind. You have to move from working for God's love to working from God's love. And listen, trust me, when you do that, everything changes. See, when you truly grasp that you are already in Christ, a beloved son or daughter first and an artist second, the fear of failure and the pressure of perfectionism starts to evaporate. You know why? Because your value is secure in Christ and you actually believe it. See, if the painting doesn't work out, you're still loved, right? If if my sculpture ends up cracking or falling off the wall, I know that I'm still chosen and a son of God. See, that's the core of kingdom creativity, real kingdom creativity. It's not about hype or hustle or trying to be better than everybody else or do it faster and better and this or that. It's about resetting your identity in Christ because when you create from a place of rest, you actually produce better artwork. You end up being able to take risks and you can experiment. You end up pricing your work confidently because you aren't begging for people's validation. You're offering a gift. And listen, you actually start to have fun and enjoy the creative process again. So I want to give you a simple tool to do right now. And I call this an alignment check. See, the good news is that you can use this the moment that you feel that creative resistance in your creative process sort of welling up in your belly, right? And here's what to do: the moment that all that kind of pressure and anxiety starts coming up in the pit of your stomach, I just want to invite you to take a moment, close your eyes, stop and breathe, physically step back from your work and just ask one simple question. Say, Lord, right now in this moment, what do you have to say about me and about this piece of art that I'm creating, about this process that I'm in? And listen, just doing that opens your ears, the ears of your heart. And you might hear him say, Well, I'm just enjoying being with you, or I love you, or I love that color you used, or I love how you're having fun in this process. Listen, whatever it is, just take that truth and speak it out loud, like God enjoys me while I'm painting right now, or God loves this process, or maybe he'll give you a scripture. Well, again, whatever it is, just take it and speak it out loud over your life, over your art in that moment as a declaration. And listen, I know this sounds simple, but that right there breaks the power of perfectionism instantly and it realigns your heart with the source of all creativity. And suddenly you aren't all alone trying to prove yourself, you're standing confidently as a child of God, collaborating with your father. And listen, that's where confident as an artist really comes from. You know, a lot of artists, including me, had to learn this the hard way. For a lot of years myself, I asked questions like, Am I allowed to be an artist? And do I need to get a real job? And does God even really care about art? But listen, it wasn't until I renewed my mind and realized that God didn't want me to feel guilty about my calling, but that he gave it to me because I was created to create. Listen, that changed everything for me. It helped me to stop striving. It helped me to stop waiting for someday and dreaming about this dream that was elusive and I was never gonna step into. It really helped me to start thriving moment by moment, day by day, creating with him and just trusting that the process that I was participating in was not because I needed to be perfect, but it was one that he was inviting me into as his child. And again, that just changed everything. Now, listen, that alignment check is pretty powerful, but it's just one tool in the toolbox. And if you're sitting here watching this video and kind of realizing, hey, I've been I've been carrying this kind of orphan mindset for years. If you feel like you're constantly battling fear and comparison and sort of this lack of direction, here's the truth. You really need a complete internal reset. That's God's plan. That's renewing your mind. Think about it like this. I like to think about it like a computer trying to run an old operating system, right? You can keep patching it, you can keep doing a workaround and try to work around all the bugs and everything, but eventually you need a total upgrade. And that's really what God wants to do. He wants to install a brand new operating system inside of you, uh a kingdom operating system, one that's based on the truth of his word, your identity in Christ, and also the freedom that only he can bring. And listen, that's exactly why I created the Created to Thrive Foundations course. That's what that course does. It's a nine-week journey that I designed to help you renew your mind, break free from perfectionism, and start discovering your unique identity as an artist. Inside the course, we walk through a step-by-step process to identify and heal the specific lies that have been holding you back. We start establishing a thriving artist mindset that withstands rejection and failure whenever it comes at you and starts practically connecting your spiritual life with your artistic calling. I price it at just$27 because I mean, honestly, it's the cost of a few tubes of paint, right? I want to remove every barrier that I can so that every artist who wants to can get this solid foundation in Christ laid in their life. Listen, my friend, you know this. You were created to thrive, not just barely survive as an artist. You were created to release the glory of God through your creativity, not be living with fear and being paralyzed all the time. If you want to dive deeper into what I've just talked about, I put a link right here in this video to the foundations course. And it's all the details are right there. Again, no pressure. I'm never trying to pressure you, but it's there when you're ready to build that solid foundation in Christ. But please, please don't watch this video and let another month or week or year go by stuck in that gap. Listen, that tool I gave you today is is really powerful. It can work right now, but the foundations course is where you can take that journey to a whole new level and start seeing that breakthrough happen in your life day after day after day. Listen, my friend, I love you. Thanks for being here with me. Watch the next video. It's going to be a big, big blessing to you. And remember, till next time, you were created to thrive. Bye.