Greater Things
A podcast about how faith fits with your everyday life. Matt interviews various speakers from around the globe and invites them to share their own experiences. For those who are asking big questions around faith, religion, church, and life.
https://www.greaterthingsinternational.com
Greater Things
Creativity Becomes A Conversation With God, with Lillibet Bothma
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Beauty is not fluff. It shapes what we hope for, what we tolerate, and what we believe God is like. Sitting down with artist Lilibet Bothma, we follow her journey from South Africa to New Zealand, the UK, and now Queensland, and how a life of making, mending, and experimenting with craft eventually led her into painting that feels less like a product and more like a spiritual practice.
Lilibet shares the dream that changed everything, a moment of “liquid light” that turned grief and big questions into a living faith. From there we talk about Christian creativity in the real world: how God can speak through images, why mystery is not a problem to solve, and what it looks like to create from presence instead of pressure. We also dig into the idea that creativity can be prayer, worship, and communion, even on days when you simply show up and “be”.
A gallery visit sparks a provocative thread: where has beauty gone, and why does so much modern art feel dark and empty? Rather than ending in complaint, we look for a better response, how to bring an economy of love, hope, and joy into spaces that need light. We also name a tension many churches feel, when preaching is elevated and the creative arts become an add-on, even though art can invite deeper relationship and personal revelation.
If you’re an artist, a leader, or someone trying to live with more rest and less control, this conversation will give you language, permission, and practical insight. Subscribe, share this with a creative friend, and leave a review telling us what beauty means to you.
Find Liilibet at: https://www.lilsartstudio.com/
www.greaterthingsinternational.com
Welcome And Artist Introduction
SPEAKER_01In today's podcast, I'm speaking with Lilibet Bothmer. She's originally from South Africa, now living in Queensland, Australia, and she is an artist. She has a wonderful take on creativity and how it has impacted every area of her life. Hope you enjoy it. Well, today I'm with a brand new guest, and uh her name is Lilibet Bothma. I probably pronounced that orally more incorrectly.
SPEAKER_03No, it's great. That's perfect.
SPEAKER_01I haven't got my mouth yet around the uh South African dialect. And so other South African friends, they're always correcting me, Lilibet.
SPEAKER_03No, no, Matt. You're fine. You're doing good. You're doing good. I think it's a struggle for most people actually, because it's it's a it's a mixture of Lili Beth and Lilibet, and there's lots of tiny little innuendos in the name that you know confuses people, but you're doing good.
SPEAKER_01Good, good. As you guys are hearing, I'm with Lilibet and uh we connected pre-COVID, we've just worked out, uh, where Lilibet came and did a course with me called Prophetic Mentoring, which is one that I'm still running. But ever since then, I've been following Lilibet online and um she is a most amazing artist. And listening, watching, and seeing the wonders that is LiliBet in the way that she produces art pieces to the point where I actually bought one uh just before Christmas and gifted to a very, very good friend who absolutely fell in love with it and now is showing it off to everybody who walks into her house. But Lilibet, welcome to the Greater Things podcast.
SPEAKER_03Thanks, Matt. I'm not sure I can top that intro, but thank you. That's awesome. Yeah, you've kind of followed me from the start. So, you know, always encouraged me and super thankful for you and just your love for the arts. And um, it's really good to know you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you. Absolutely, ditto. Um, so Lilibet, when we start off these podcasts, as you heard, one of the first questions that I ask um any guest is, who are they? Uh so in your words, could you answer the question of who is Lilibet?
SPEAKER_03Yes, that's a big question. I don't know. Um unfolding every day. But no, I'm South African. I've um spent most of my life living in New Zealand and uh went to high school and university in New Zealand and um then left and I traveled a little bit and I lived in the UK and um traveled Europe for a bit and then lived in Australia. So I've really lived all over the place and um always been a very creative person, love uh art and it kind of initially started with uh just fixing broken things. I just love taking old things and making them new and beautiful or you know, giving them a purpose again. So you name the craft, I've done it and tried it. You know, I studied um, I didn't start study art, I studied fashion design. So um I did four years of fashion design in New Zealand, and then from there I moved to the UK, and that's where I kind of started painting a little bit more. But I didn't seriously start uh painting until my late 20s, I would say, when I became um born again, you could say. And uh I kind of stepped into all of these amazing opportunities that I believe God sent my way. Um but yeah, I've always been interested in creativity and um why we are here on this earth, I guess you could say. And yeah, just every day is a learning curve, and I feel like I'm stepping more into myself every day. And so it's always hard for me to answer that question of who are you? Because you know, you could go down so many different directions to answer that question. But that would be the the basic part of it, I think.
A Dream That Changes Everything
SPEAKER_01I love that. I love the wonder that's inside of you, and I think that's part of what I've enjoyed watching online as you create, like there's a blank canvas, there's a piece of paper, there's whatever it is, and you choose to do something about that that comes out of imagination and allows it to be presented in art form. So somewhere along that journey, faith became an important part to the conversation, which sounds like late 20s. How has faith and creativity collided for you?
SPEAKER_03Well, I was saved quite amazingly through a dream. And um, at the time, I actually in my mid-20s, I lost a friend while we were on vacation. So it was quite a traumatic experience for me. And I really wanted some answers around where he went and why did this happen, and you know, all of the things you might ask when you lose someone. And God appeared to me in a dream very like, oh, it was just so amazing. It completely changed my life. And um, I don't know if you want me to tell a little bit of the experience, but um, in the dream, basically I was a vessel and I was being filled with this gorgeous, gorgeous, it was like lava, but it was liquid light, and it was just filling me up from my toes to my head, and then I started floating. And I woke up still feeling the glory of God in the room, and I was so touched by this, but I didn't really know what it was. I'd never have dreams like that in my life before, so I knew it was important. And um, my sister at the time was attending church, and she told me to come along to church, so I did go to church, and the very same day in church, you know, I sat down and I was like, oh, I'm not sure about this, you know. But for some reason, we had a moment of silence in the um service. I can't remember what happened, but we had a moment of silence in the church, and um I that exact same feeling of this liquid light um filling me started happening while I was sitting in the chair. And I was I didn't know what to do. I I wish I could see my face when it was happening because I was just, you know, not crying, but amazed and stunned of the beauty of that moment. And still to this day, I find it so hard to explain what it felt like and what was happening, but I I could feel at a cellular level, I could feel myself changing. Wow, and I felt whole and I felt um contentment, and it was just beautiful, it was just beautiful. And ever since that day, I've just had such a um passion for mystery, and you know, the things are known, and um that's where it started really, and from then on I was dream dreaming non-stop, you know. I would I would dream about people and then meet them a few days later, and it was just such an amazing experience for me to have a relationship with God in a way that I knew that He was speaking to me, um, and it completely changed my life, and all of these creative um opportunities came my way. So, in a way, I just believed that it was God, you know, sending those things to me because I felt quite directionless at that time. I was working in the fashion industry and I was so unhappy. And um yeah, so I just from then decided that I was just gonna live my life with a green light and I was just gonna say yes to everything. And if anything didn't work out, then I would take a different door. But um God's been so good, He's been so good and so kind and so soft in preparing me for things that come. Um so yeah, so that's kind of where it all started, the creative journey and the dreaming, and back to what you were talking about, the intuitive way of um that you've noticed that I do my work is very important to me because I would say my ultimate news would be mystery, right? So within that you can go down many, many different pathways, but that's kind of what keeps me going, you know, it's the mystery and just thinking on the mystery and um the mysteries of God in particular and how that binds us as humans. So yeah.
Creativity As Prayer And Presence
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't know if I answered your question, but well, you've answered it and given me more thoughts uh to go down because mystery is something like I very strongly believe that I'm a mystic, uh I'm a searcher of spiritual truths. I want to discover the mystery, hidden mysteries of God, and I love when Jesus talks about when you're a friend of his, it's because he's revealing those uh hidden mysteries to his friends and creativity I have found, and for me, Lily Bert, it's been recent days. I've always I've played music, I've written songs. It wasn't until I started writing books that this whole idea of the power of creativity to search the mystery. And in my creative output of writing, um, I'm sitting with God in conversation and I've found that my creativity has become a prayer. How do you feel about your creativity being a prayer?
SPEAKER_03100%. That's so spot on, so spot on. And it depends on the day for me too, because it could be prayer, so it's kind of like a way of connection. And then that could be with God or it could be with um people, or it's it's kind of like we're building bridges with our um creativity, you know, or windows, I guess you could say. These different kinds that you know of outputs I I would say that you could follow. But um prayer is definitely a very good way. Worship is another way, um, I think for me. Um and just not necessarily I don't know how to explain this, not necessarily just sometimes just being, you know. I'm you know, I don't always go into the studio thinking, okay, today I want to worship, or today I want to pray with God. Sometimes you just want to be, you know. But I mean, and the scenes, that's prayer also. So yeah, so but yeah, that's a beautiful way to say it. Creativity as a form of prayer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's just and what listening to you, not what not just watching, but listening to you as well. Like the the idea of beauty has been that connecting point to God through creativity. And I think like even just being, because to me that's the idea of presence. Like if I can just be present with God, wonders can actually happen. And so often when I'm writing, I don't know what I'm about to write. I just want to start off with a conversation with God. So in my writing, I call him the designer, and I'm sitting at a fire with him, and I'm like, what's on your heart today? And it allows a communication to occur from a place of beauty and wonder inside of that.
SPEAKER_02And so but presence is- That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_01Yep. So presence is a big deal. And it sounds to me like presence is a very big deal for you, yeah.
SPEAKER_03It is, it's really presence-led because the thing is, I don't I I find it always okay, I should say the end result when I'm working on something and I'm not trying to get a specific end result. Um, that's when the gold comes out, when I'm just kind of emptying myself and um waiting for God to bring things to mind so that I can then, you know, pay that, or for you that would be writing that. Um, that's when the gold comes up. And then you look at it um after you're finished and you go, oh wow, God was saying this and this and this and this. And um it's exactly that. It's being in relationship with God and communing with him. And for me, it's that realization afterwards of going, wow, like he's speaking to me, you know. And um, that to me is precious, just being able to have that relationship with him and being able to get to know him in that way. So yeah, going into it empty. Yeah, and that that to me is the most beautiful kind of creativity. Um, it's so interesting. There's a lady called Mary Oliver who wrote this poem called Blue Iris, and it's the most beautiful poem to me because it explains exactly what it is to be a creator. And she goes into this poem and she says, Now that I'm free to be myself, who am I? And then she's, you know, trying all of these things. She's saying, Oh, I'm gonna write a book, and then she's sitting down trying to write a book, and then there's a fly in the room that's teasing her. And then she goes to another room and she decides, no, I'm just gonna read a little bit, and then the wind outside is rushing her. And then at the end of all of this, she says, Um, I'll try to remember it, but she says, My heart panics not to be as I long to be an empty, pure, waiting, speechless vessel or receptacle. That's what she says. And to me, that just sums out, sums up what it is to be a creative so beautifully, because that's when the gold comes out, is when we can get ourselves to a place where we are open to hearing God and translating what he says to in whatever form he wants us to. So that can be any creative um way that you want to do it, right? And um that's all I strive to do really, and I think that's when the gold comes out.
Where Has Beauty Gone In Art
SPEAKER_01So I love that. One of the the reasons why we're even in this conversation is a number of months ago you went to a uh museum or an art gallery, and um after it you uh had a moment where you decided I'm actually gonna speak some truth into a conversation around where has the beauty gone as well. And that then kicked off a series of conversations around this importance of beauty, this empty vessel that can then create these wonders of things that could be. Uh, to the point where the other day, when you posted a uh Instagram reel, you spoke about we need to amplify the economy of love, hope, and joy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01In these places of beauty. What's happening in that conversation for you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I started um okay, so I'll start from the beginning. But uh, as we were saying before, I have a bit of a monkey brain, so I'm like the typical creative, unfortunately, you know, the stereotype. So I started um just collating some of my thoughts after I went to the gallery that day because I was so sad that everything in there, you know, this is my personal opinion, but I just felt like everything in there was so ugly. And it made me sad because art should be a place that should be art should be uplifting to people and it should pull pull people up, you know. And um, so I started just collating my thoughts a little bit um as a form of just understanding better what I think about creativity and maybe sharing it with the world and not really knowing where I'm going with this at all, but I want to start a conversation and see what other people think about beauty and the importance of beauty and how that connects us to God. And so with this last post, um I was talking about um the importance. Well, I want to keep a positive too. I want to keep the conversation positive. There's no point in just pointing out the fact that everything's ugly around us all the time. We need to be speaking posity and light into those spaces. So what I was trying to say with the last post was how can we do that? How can we bring the joy and the hope and the love down? Um, because that's what the father would want. That's the economy that we operate from.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um how can we bring that down into these dark spaces? Which unfortunately the the art world is a very, very dark world. Um, but it doesn't have to be. That's why we're here. So I'm just I'm trying to ask questions to get a conversation going because I don't have the answers, definitely not. But I think it's important that we start talking about these things because especially as Christians, we have the Father, the ultimate creator, um within us. So we already have these resources, but we need to um figure out how to bring that down to earth, you know?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I think that's where I was going with that last post.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I love that you are because I think this is part of the conversation that needs, in my opinion, to come back into the Christian church. Because often in the Christian church, we elevate things like preaching as to be the pinnacle of everything that a church does. Um, and while I preached that because I was there, I did that very thing. I was a part of that whole process. The older I've gotten, the more that I've realized God's voice is found everywhere. But in the creative, God's voice can be seen and heard in multiple different ways. And so you can look at an art piece and I can look at an art piece and go, This is what I get. And you've like, I didn't get that, but this is what I got. And then we have this beautiful conversation of what we've received together. Now, we've done that forever with the Bible. Like, we'll hear a story of David and Goliath, and you'll read it, and I'll read it, and we'll get two different things out of it. Now I'm discovering it in the creative arts. And so it's not just we put a painter on a stage and have them paint while I'm preaching. Um it kind of feels it's cool, but it kind of feels like it's the second cousin twice removed from the actual preaching moment as well. Um it's now bringing the creative arts back into the place where I think, where I believe, God has always had them. How do you feel about that?
SPEAKER_03I love that. That's so spot on. You hit it on the nail. And it all comes down to relationship because for me, the the reason why it's so important that we don't just give people the message, as you're saying, um, as a preacher, which obviously is very important as well. But um if you're just giving someone a message on a plate, they can look at it and say, Oh yeah, okay, cool. But they might not have the relationship with that message that the pastor had. So when you're showing someone a painting, there's mystery in that. Again, we come back to the mystery. So when you're sitting with a painting and like contemplating it and thinking on it, you're starting to build a relationship with the mystery within the picture. And that is much richer than someone just giving you a sentence and saying, or a message and saying this is what it means. So I think that's also why Jesus spoke in parables, because there was a lot of mystery in that, and you could interpret it in different ways, and the spirit would speak to you exactly how she wants it interpreted within you, or he. So um, yes, so I agree 100%. And you know, as you said, it's really cool to see someone's ability and skill up on stage painting while someone's um preaching, but then again, it's turning into a show, it's not turning into contemplative time where someone could have or build a relationship with God. So yeah, I agree with you. Let's bring more art and creativity back into um you know, church and spaces, yeah.
Bringing Creativity Back To Church
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Let me ask you a question then, because I think Jesus is the ultimate creative. Not only did he create the world, but parables uh like people often say to me, Matt, where did where does the Bible teach about using your imagination? And I'm like, Well, Jesus with his parables, like every single time he he spoke a parable, however many people he had, their minds were seeing something different. So Lily Bitt, as the artist, uh here's the parable of the lost coin. What are Piece starts forming in your mind. And I haven't given Lilibet a heads up on this. I'm just asking her on the spot. Um so take the time to think of it, Lily Bet, like the parable of the lost coin that this woman's searching for. If you're gonna paint something of that story of that parable, where does your mind go to?
SPEAKER_03See, this is interesting because this is not how God speaks to me. He would never give me, he would I never get a specific message or an idea, and then he would say, Okay, you can work this into a painting. I know he works like this with many, many people. And that's awesome, but I don't find that helpful for me. But I think this is also why the intuitive side is so interesting because I tend to just sit down and he would give me pictures. So then usually with my paintings, it would start with figures, so human figures. And I would paint a human figure, you know, sitting in a contemplative kind of pose, or maybe they're dancing, or you know, whatever. And then I might sit on that for two weeks or three weeks and not knowing where this painting's going. Then he would give me something else to put with it. You know, sometimes I'm sitting in front of a painting for two hours before I even know, or sometimes I just don't even carry on. And then I build a painting over, you know, sometimes it goes up to six months, but it does take a long time. Sometimes it could only be a week, you know, sometimes it comes so quickly. And then at the end, I would stand back and look at it and go, okay, God, what are you saying? And then he would speak through this painting a message that you know I never, never, ever could have thought of, you know. So that's kind of how it works for me. Um, but I know it's different for for many people. Obviously, he speaks differently to everyone. And again, that's the mystery in it, and that's what makes it so how the spirit moves. That's what's make what makes it so powerful. So yeah, I can't answer that question.
SPEAKER_01And that's so this is, I think, even for the listeners who are coming along, this is how I love to operate. Because when we're in places of collaboration, which a podcast is a collaboration, like it's sitting with somebody and going, okay, what's on your heart, what's on your thoughts, in your thoughts. And it allows it then to grow to become something else. And so simple moments like what you've just shared have helped people understand what it is to be in the mind of Lilibet when she is creating. And again, it comes back to that place of presence. How important is presence to Lilibet? Like it's a massive statement that exactly, exactly.
Intuitive Painting Without Control
SPEAKER_03And there's nothing without it. There's nothing without it. I had a life without the presence and it was rubbish. And now I have a life with the presence by the grace of God, and you just can't compare those two things. So it's incredibly, incredibly important, you know. Um yeah, it's very interesting to me the different ways the spirit speaks, you know. And I think we have to be very open to not always having to know the outcome. Or um it's important not to have a specific idea in mind, you know, of what you want to get out of out of your creativity, because that's kind of when you start to lose yourself. Um, and you know, I have a great example about this. When when I was a little baby Christian, this was probably about 15 years now, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, um, I had this great opportunity to work with um Tier Fund New Zealand, which is the same as Compassion Australia, I think it's the same um organization. And I 100% believe that this opportunity was from God, and it definitely was. It was such an amazing experience. But I got to paint um 20 paintings uh of women and children that lived in communities that were affected by human trafficking in Cambodia and Southeast Asia. So I um did this exhibition with them in partnership with Tear Fund, and there were also some poems by a poet named John Watson that accompanied the paintings. And I did that for two years, and it felt awesome. I just felt so um useful, if that if that's a good word to use. I felt useful and I had this idea of this outcome that I wanted from this in mind, um, which was obviously fundraising, and that's noble and that's amazing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um and there was a there was a reason why God gave me this exhibition, why he wanted me to work through this. So when I finished this exhibition, I went through a period of real deep sadness and kind of like um loss almost, grief maybe, but it's because I was creating out of um how should I say, out of a broken place. I was creating out of um how can I explain this? Uh okay, let's let me say like this. Basically, God showed me the difference between living out a mafia life and living out a merry life. So the one was about doing, right? So um, which is also very important in life. And I think we all go through stages in life where you need to have both, or you're kind of leaning into one side more than the other side. So it was definitely more of a doing period where I felt like I need to do this, and then the outcome was measurable. So that made me feel good because I was, you know, giving something. Um whereas now it's more the contemplative way of creating. And I think God just allowed me to experience both so that I can see the difference between the two. And like I'm, you know, there's not it's not that one is worse than the other one. There are different times in our lives where we need to live more in one than the other. So that's what I'm saying. But I definitely know which one I would choose.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, because there's a lot of rest, you know. I'm sorry I'm using all these buzzwords, but it's, you know, it is. There's a lot of rest in living, was it Mary? The Mary.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Living the Mary rather than the Martha.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
Rest Over Hustle And Closing Links
SPEAKER_01That's a powerful example. Because I was gonna ask you that question about rest as well, Lily, but because like creativity and presence, it has for me, it's been like an overflow into rest. Um and I'm finding that rest is actually our design, that's where I start from rather than what I uh try and earn. And creativity, it's like being an open doorway. Like if I'm trying to write to produce, I can feel rest sort of dissolving away, if that's the right way of saying it. I don't know. But there's there's something about rest being part of our design, presence being part of our design, creativity being a part of our design. Where I think in the West knowledge has become our design.
SPEAKER_02Yes, that's right.
SPEAKER_01And so and it's it's infiltrated the church. So the more I know about God, then obviously the more spiritual I am as the outcome of that. Where I've found that knowledge is good, but presence, creativity, and rest is where life life is abundant, if I can even use that bit.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. Exactly. That is so well said, Matt, that you hit it on the nail. Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03And you found that definitely 100%. It was it was it was a joy to do that first exhibition, but I was exhausted after that. Uh whereas now, you know, as I mentioned, I can be working on the same amount of paintings at the same time, but it's it gives you life. Like you want to keep going, you want to keep pushing, you want to do better. Um, and that only comes because you're in rest, you're working out of rest.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So, and the weird thing happens when you're in rest, you get, you know, all of these opportunities come your way that are not, you know, from you. So it's amazing. It's amazing living in rest, how awesome it is. But we have to be willing to allow that. We have to be willing to let all of our preconceived ideas and you know things go. We have to let those things go to be able to enter into this rest.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Give up the control.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, that's the big one, right? Because that's where the mystery is. Like if we want to get comfortable in the mystery, control has to be something we confront at some level. Because again, we love controlling our lives. But and this is where I think the way that you create is so important. Like you sit there and wait rather than going with a pre preconceived idea. There's something about that that I think is that's life-giving in itself.
SPEAKER_03And it's just interesting to see what comes out of that, you know, it just blows me away all the time. It blows me away. But again, there's this great of mystery through it all. And yeah, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. The mystery is beautiful, and beauty is mystery, and I think that's why I love beauty so much.
SPEAKER_01Yep. I think love is mystery. Like when you love somebody, like you never know where that's going to end up, but it's most likely different from what you expect.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. 100%.
SPEAKER_01There's so much. So there's so much in this conversation. Like I I could probably have a number of these sessions with you. And if you're for a little bit, I'd be very keen to keep the conversation happening. Because like you talk about Mount Monkey Brain, and I have the same sort of thing where it's just like I turn left at Albuquerque. Do you remember Bugs Bunny turning left at Albuquerque? That's I often say I've turned left at Albuquerque, and where have I gone? Um Wonderland finding uh what why did I go down that hole or you know, the matrix, why or why did I get the red pill? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But these it's good to talk about these things, you know, it's good to share ideas and concepts. And because I find it really hard to articulate my thoughts, you know. I mean, I'm sure you could tell I'm it's not the easiest thing for me. That's why I paint them, you know. But um, when you talk about these things, it opens up different avi avenues and get different people's perspectives. And um, so that's why these conversations are so important.
SPEAKER_00Well, more to come. So Lilibet, how can people find you?
SPEAKER_03Okay, I am probably the most active on Instagram. I would say just find me on Instagram.
SPEAKER_01Yep. So if you're looking for Lilibet Bothma, I will put the link in uh the podcast below so people can you can click onto that and follow along and see the wonders of what she's doing and the way that the monkey brain is actually working out the next in this great mystery that she is walking out. But Lilibet, thank you so much for your time today. And just uh I feel so blessed to have been in sitting in this moment with you.
SPEAKER_03Oh, thank you, Matt. Have a great day, everyone.
SPEAKER_01Well, for everyone else listening, this is the Greater Things Podcast. We'll be back in your ears next time. Bye for now. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, or go to our website, greater thingsintern.com.