According to the YouTube video below, three "Coloring Books for Adults" top the Christian Book Top 10 in America!
Whether they are in the top ten here in the Netherlands, I don't know. But coloring books for adults can also be bought here in the Netherlands everywhere: from Action and Bijenkorf to Zeeman! And what is already hot in America is now also starting in our country: "Coloring books for Adults". Then you color biblical prints or biblical texts. Beautiful, isn't it?
Or is there maybe something wrong with it?
In itself, of course, coloring pictures is very common. Children have been doing it for 'I don't know how long and learn all sorts of good things through it. Among them is the improvement of fine motor skills.
But if you start "coloring on the square millimeter" you have to concentrate very much, otherwise it will go wrong. You go outside the lines and you mess up your drawing, of course. But that concentration is where the problem lies.
I quote:
Concentration is often recommended as a preliminary stage of meditation. In concentration, your attention is focused on one thing. The less your attention jumps from one thing to another the better. Relaxed looking at a candle is a nice exercise. To be clear - a free mind without thoughts - this is good preparation. Meditation is the to empty of your mind. Meditation you can't actually practice. It is a state of mind: you are awake, alertly present in your body, and yet at peace. In this clarity you are centered, you dispose of all your senses and you are maximally present in the now.(...)
Anything you do with unstressed attention leads to a meditative state.(...) it is not the method that is important but the state of consciousness achieved with it.
Concentration is needed to center yourself and focus your attention. Meditation forms and techniques are actually concentration techniques - making sure your mind does not wander. Anything is useful for this - washing dishes with attention or making an address list on the computer with care just as well.(...) There is then only being; 'you are'. This feels like an intimate contentment - in touch with your primal source; alert and alive.
Coloring this kind of drawing is not innocent. It has been done for a number of years now, and it is the continuation of drawing or coloring mandalas. They are methods for clearing your head and getting into another state of consciousness.
It functions! On the internet people tell what they think about it, what they experience. One I hadn't heard before is: It makes me zen! Apparently there are all kinds of ways used by people to "get zen. Adult coloring is one of them.
Colors as an alternative to meditation
The Huffington Post posted a in July 2015 article which also discusses "Coloring for Adults. In it it is clearly stated that the activity of coloring and the focus on the activity, reduces your sense of self-awareness. It is therefore seen as an alternative to meditation. Another way to get into a state of higher consciousness.
It seems that it is becoming easier and easier to enter a state of higher consciousness. In the middle of the last century, a person still had to spend years in solitude on a mountain to "reach the transcendental goal" with much practice. Ten years ago you could experience it with a workshop of one or two days. Nowadays, you buy a Coloring Book for Adults and lo and behold, the first steps toward the transcendent have been taken!
The need is high
It is apparently true that more and more people are having great difficulty living. It is not surprising. When a person thinks about his own life, he does not get happy, not to say that it can drive you crazy. Your past: what was done to you and what you did to yourself. The present: also no fun with all that is asked of you in a world that - if you are honest - is getting worse and worse. Then the future: what future? And what comes after death? "Nothing!", people tell themselves, but deep down they know better.
That a person sometimes (and increasingly often) wants to push away and get rid of all those dark thoughts is self-evident. "The captain of the power in the air" (Ephesians 2:2) offers more and more and easier means to experience that: a little "happiness" in this evil world. Coloring for Adults is currently part of that.
Colors for Adult Christians
It will come as no surprise to anyone that such things then also end up in the Christian yard. But of course with beautiful bible texts.
Another way of "Bible reading" for the serious Bible reader and you have something like 'Lectio Divina' (see, among others. here). But for Christians who do not like the Bible reading and coloring so much, there is now Christian coloring.
This is not the only book and it is expected that there will be more to come.
Coloring for adults: don't start!
Don't start if you want to follow the Lord Jesus. It leads you away from Him. It is a trick of satan to pull you away from the Lord Jesus. It puts you on the path of the idols.
Of course, it does not mean that the believer will not have difficulties or trials in life. They are things that can keep you busy. But always the Lord Jesus says:
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me that I am meek and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls; for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)
Still widely available in the evangelical bookstore after almost 1.5 years!
Related article: Bible journaling
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