I have been using AI this week to help me create a coloring book for our little friends up in Alaska.
First, I started with some adorable pages from old calendars, which I repurposed by gluing heavy card stock onto the back of each.
Then using the theme of each calendar page, I typed in a prompt to have AI create a coloring page.
Here you can see an example:
What was amazing to me is how different the AI generated coloring page could turn out based on the same prompt. For example, here are 3 completely different coloring pages based on the exact same prompt: “Create a coloring page of a little girl and a little boy fishing.”
(As you can tell, AI sometimes gets things wrong – such as the little girl fishing into the ground. Ha!)
(This was the coloring page I liked best and decided to use for the coloring book I was making.)
In thinking about how one simple prompt can create such completely different outcomes, I was struck with how this is just like the way God’s Word is at work in each of our lives.
God tells us all the exact same prompt: “Love one another.” The way we each respond to that prompt is completely different.
The ways you love people will look completely different than the ways I love people.
God tells us all: “Rejoice in the Lord.” The way you respond to that prompt will look completely different than the way I respond to that prompt.
Here is another example from the coloring book I have been creating. The Scripture verse is: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.” In this coloring page the children are taking a “leap of faith” off a very big rock. This could represent each of us, in our own lives, taking a “leap of faith” to trust God. Maybe it’s a “leap of faith” to trust God with our finances. Maybe it’s a “leap of faith” to trust God with our job. Maybe it’s a “leap of faith” do something specific God has put on our heart to do.
But here is another, completely different coloring page which could also represent “Trust in the Lord.” In this coloring page the children are taking a “step of faith” to cross a river on rocks. It can be scary to cross a river on rocks. What if the rocks are slippery? What if the children accidentally slip and fall into the cold water? There is a big powerful waterfall in the background. The thundering noise of the big waterfall might make it even scarier to try to cross the river on the slippery rocks.
So also, in each of our own lives we can follow God’s prompt of: “Trust in the Lord” by metaphorically “crossing the river on rocks.” It might be scary for us to move forward and “cross the river” (whatever that looks like in each of our lives). We might doubt our own ability to cross the river on the rocks. We might worry that the rocks will be slippery. We might worry about accidentally slipping and falling into the cold water. We might be intimidated by the “background noise” we hear thundering around us in life.
God tells us in His Word: “Trust in the Lord.” Some of us might respond by taking a “leap of faith” and “jumping off a big rock.” Others of us might respond by taking a “step of faith” and “crossing the river on rocks.” They both are correct.
The way you trust in the Lord will look completely different than the way I trust in the Lord.
And they both are a correct response to God’s “prompt.”
Here you can see an AI generated coloring page that can go with the Scripture: “Marvelous are your works, God.” – Psalm 139:14 The children are looking through their binoculars to see what they can see.
When it comes to our own lives … are we looking for the wonderful, amazing, marvelous works of God? They are all around us! What you see through your “binoculars” will be completely different than what I see through my “binoculars.”
Just like the AI coloring pages turn out completely different from each other in response to the same prompt, so also as we each respond to God’s “prompts” in the Bible, the outcomes will look completely different in our own lives. And all our responses are correct. All of our responses please God!
Sure, sometimes we might mess up and get things a little bit wrong … like the coloring page of the little girl fishing into the ground. But that’s ok. I simply told AI to “have the little girl fish in the water instead of the ground” … and AI corrected the coloring page.
In the same way, when we mess up and get things wrong, God points it out to us and tells us (through the promptings of the Holy Spirit in our conscience and through the Word of God) how he would like our life to be instead. And just like AI corrected the coloring page, so also we adjust what God points out in our life and we correct it.
