Raising a Family on God’s Word

Raising a Family on God’s Word
(Who is Jesus, anyway?)

“Raising a family on God’s Word” refers to medieval art in the faces of the characters referenced. At the time the illustration was rendered, our family of five was experiencing events and situations where it seemed devine intervention protected us, by no effort of ours. We weren’t particularly pious, religiously. Yes, our family attended church, but we didn’t go to the mission field. I knew God protected His missionaries. We enjoyed fellowship with other believers, but neither of us were pastoring a church. I wasn’t the “preacher man.” I knew God protected His pastors and clergy. And yet, close calls on the highway, or illness that could be debilitating, disableing or even fatal, we were spared. We were just the ordinary pay check-to-paycheck family. Throughout several consecutive experiences, I felt vulnerable. And yet, my family, especially my children, were consistently protected from tragedy. I believe all parents KNOW this principle, from birth throughout their children’s growing up years and beyond. Grace has been referred to as God’s “unmerited favor.”
While that principle is true, what about when bad things happen to good people?

The Bible, or “the Word,” in this illustration acts as the ground on which the floating family maintains life. Jesus is referred to as “the Word.” With the Word to stand on, even when bad things happen, our floating lives can maintain. We could talk about Jesus’s characteristics of self-sacrifice, charity, love your neighbor as yourself, and love your enemy. All those are noble, essential characteristics of our Christian lives. But when you do those things and it seems there are still difficult or unfair situations, stand on the Bible. When the world spins terribly out of control and you recite the Lord’s Prayer, for instance, somehow life will calm down.
I don’t understand it, I just know it works.
That is who Jesus is.

This illustration was rendered in 1992 while studying illustration under Jimmy Longacre. Longacre challenged the class to communicate a principle that was difficult to communicate in words. . . 

. . . so here it is: “Raising a Family on God’s Word.”

About the professor: Jimmy Longacre graduated from the University of Texas with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art, and then earned a Master of Fine Art degree from Syracuse University.  Jimmy fed his artistic interests on the masters of the Golden Age of American Illustration and the American Impressionists. In following his early passion for these he enjoyed a career as an award-winning freelance illustrator and painter for twenty-five years. He taught drawing and painting while on the faculties of The University of Texas College of Fine Art and Austin Community College. Today, Jimmy Longacre is a full-time landscape painter, and lives on a hilltop in the Texas hill country, near Dripping Springs.

-credit longacreart.com

Artist’s Statement:

People say, “I can’t draw a straight line. How do you do that?” My reply is, “I can’t draw a straight line either. I just know what to erase.” Think about the lives we live on this planet. None of us lives perfectly, but with wisdom and conviction, we know what actions to not repeat, to ask for forgiveness for, what to erase.

11 x 14 Original Mixed Media Guache and Prisma Color on Plaka Board $1100
11 x 14 Print $40