According to the YouTube video below, three “Coloring books for Adults” are at the top of 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, coloring pictures is of course very common. Children have been doing that for I don't know how long and they learn all kinds of good things from it. This includes improving 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. Looking relaxed at a candle is a great exercise. To be clear – a free mind without thoughts – this is a good preparation. Meditation it is to empty of your mind. You can't really practice meditation. It is a state of mind: you are awake, alert in your body, and yet at rest. In this clarity you are centered, you have all your senses and you are fully 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 inward contentment - in touch with your primal source; alert and alive.
Coloring this kind of drawing is not innocent. For several years now it has been done 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 posts in July 2015 a article which also discusses 'Colors for Adults'. It clearly states 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 getting easier and easier to get into a state of higher consciousness. In the middle of the last century, a person had to spend years in solitude on a mountain in order to "achieve the transcendent goal" with a lot of practice. Ten years ago you could already experience it with a workshop of one or two days. Today you buy an Adult Coloring Book and lo and behold, the first steps towards 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, it does not make him happy, not to say it can drive him 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!" is what 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 'reading the Bible' for the serious Bible reader and you have something like 'Lectio Divina' (see ao 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 it if you want to follow the Lord Jesus. It leads you away from Him. It is a trick of Satan to pull you away behind the Lord Jesus. It leads you into the path of idols.
Of course, it does not mean that the believer will not have any trials or tribulations in life. They are things that can keep you pretty 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 gentle and humble of heart; and you shall find rest for your souls; for My yoke is gentle 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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