April 20, 2009

This illustration was inspired by a really old cartoon about Jesus I so happened to watch about three years ago and after usual reading of my favorite bible.

This illustration is based on a verse from bible Luke 22: 42 “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

In this illustration I showed what a lot of times happens inside our human souls. I found that there are two persons in me. And this is the paradox sometimes we find ourselves in.

A lot of times the things we want to do, we don’t do and the things we don’t want to do, we still do them. I found that this is because of these two persons in me. They resist each other. I feel their desperate willingness to take over me, but it is up to me to decide who will win. They are good and evil or spirit and flesh. They fight for my life, for my future, for my destiny. Good wants to save me and evil wants to have me for its own purposes; to steal, kill, and destroy. It is much easier to be evil then to overcome it with goodness.

But I don’t want an easy life because it is boring. I don’t want to be like everyone else who took this rode. I don’t want to go by the flow with a crowd. I want to be someone else, maybe misunderstood but right, maybe misjudged but righteous, maybe looser but strong winner inside of me. Because the one who can control his thoughts, anger, flesh, he is greater then warrior who concurred many countries. I rather do what’s right, even if that’ll be impossible for me to do. I rather do what’s hard but right then easy yet wicked.

This is something Jesus went through in the garden before intentionally giving Himself up for torture. In prayers He was saying that He doesn’t want to drink His cup, yet He understood that He has to, He has to do the thing He doesn’t want to do. Jesus knew that the last hours if His life would be horrible beyond imagination. He was humble and went against His flesh and what evil tried to dictate. Jesus drank His cup.

Cup represents destiny, our path of life. We all have our own cup to drink from. Only strong ones win and only courageous ones are bold enough to dare to drink from their cup. It might be bitter and detestable, but after all it will be like honey on your lips. Yet some people refuse to take the path that was created for them trying to live an easy life, but at the end they perish. This is why it is always better to look at a finish line when we start our run, see further then a first turn. This helps us to make right decisions that will get us to the finish without bad surprises.

Life is just a pregame of a real game in heaven. It is some 80 years vs. eternity. Therefore I have decided to drink from my cup, drink it all. Loose my soul, so I can gain it back in Christ, because if I’ll try to save it here, I will loose it.

And so these are my thoughts behind this picture that I’ve seen in my head three years ago. This is my self portrait, self portrait of who I am on the inside, of what is going on in me.