The Painter Who Looked Higher

In 1888, the great art critic John Ruskin told Lilias Trotter she could become the finest painter in England. She had extraordinary talent — her watercolors caught light in ways that stunned the London art world. Ruskin personally mentored her, opening every door to fame and recognition.

But Lilias couldn't shake a quiet pull toward something Ruskin couldn't see. She had been doing mission work in London's slums, and her heart had shifted. She turned down Ruskin's patronage and sailed for Algeria, where she would spend the next thirty-eight years sharing the gospel among Muslim communities in North Africa.

She never stopped painting. Her journals overflow with delicate sketches of desert flowers and Algerian sunsets. But her art had become a tool for something beyond herself — illustrations for Arabic gospel tracts, visual parables for people who couldn't read.

Ruskin never understood. To him, she had thrown away the greatest gift an artist could receive. But Lilias had discovered what Paul describes in Colossians 3 — when your life is hidden with Christ in God, the things that once defined you don't disappear. They are reoriented. Set your minds on things above, Paul writes, and everything below finds its true purpose. Lilias Trotter didn't lose her gift. She finally found what it was for.