Coloring Outside the Lines

The hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord.
–Acts 11:21

If I asked you to list the most creative people in history, you might think of Leonardo da Vinci, Ludwig van Beethoven, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, or Steve Jobs. But no list of creative people would be complete without Walt Disney. Disney’s biographer said his creative genius emerged at an early age. When he was in the fourth grade, his teacher gave the class an assignment to draw the bouquet of flowers that was sitting on her desk. As she made the rounds to check each child’s progress, she stopped cold at Disney’s desk. He had replaced the flower blooms with human faces and the leaves with arms. She chastised him, but his biographer said, Nevertheless, Walt Disney “continued to draw things the way he saw them.” We might say Walt Disney learned how to color outside the lines.

Although I’m not nearly as creative as Disney was, I had a similar experience in school as a child. When I was in the first grade, my teacher was distressed about my inability to color inside the lines. She called in my parents for a conference and said, “Robert is a sweet boy, but don’t expect too much out of him.”

Coloring outside the lines may not always be appreciated, but learning to be creative and color outside the lines is necessary for success in every area of life, including sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. In Acts 11, we see two churches that were willing to color outside the lines. It was because of their creativity that the gospel expanded as quickly as it did. In fact, many people are Christians today because of these two churches.

Let me be clear: I’m talking about coloring outside man-made lines, not God’s lines. We have no right to go beyond God’s ordained boundaries and restrictions. For example, we can’t erase the line God has established for salvation. Acts 4:12 says salvation is found in no one except Jesus. We are not to color outside that line by saying that anybody who sincerely believes in God is saved. We have to stay within God-given boundaries, but we need to move beyond man-made prejudices and traditions. The churches in Jerusalem and Antioch were willing to do this, and they were blessed by God.

Today’s devotion is adapted from “Coloring Outside the Lines,” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2022.

Bob Thomas, Walt Disney: An American Original (Disney Editions, 1994), 36.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.