Joe Castillo: The Art of Seeking His Face

CBN.com - Talent blossomed at an early age for Joe Castillo. Both his parents were artists.

"When I was in the third or fourth grade, the kids would come look over my shoulder and say, 'Wow, that’s really good.' ”

That love for art led him to Christ.

"When I was 15, I was invited to go to a Christian camp in Southern Mexico, and so the very first impact on me was a chalk artist that did an illustration of the face of Christ and shared the Gospel," says Joe.

Joe enrolled in an art school. After graduation, he opened an adverting agency and did art on the side. A friend saw his drawing of the fact of Christ and offered to market it. 

"He took a look at it and said, 'I don’t think that will sell, but I tell you what, if they sell, I will give you royalties.' I said okay."

The face of Christ did sell, and Joe never got a cent.

"I was sorta left feeling like I had been betrayed. I was angry at God and what I didn’t realize was that it was starting to affect all my relationship. It was affecting my relationship with my kids and with other people, and I had actually become worse then the guy that had taken advantage of me."

Joe sought the Lord to help him as he struggled to forgive.

"I finally let it go and I said, 'God, it's yours,' and forgave the man that had taken my artwork and said, 'Whatever you want to do with it is fine,' and that’s when I was set free from the anger and the bitterness. The Scripture verse that he gave me was

and that’s the verse that says, ‘Look to the Lord and His strength. Look for His face always,’ and of course, it was the face of Christ. It was always showing up to haunt me, and He wanted me to look to Him for the strength to be able forgive, and that’s were I found it."

One day while looking at his original drawing, Joe realized it was incomplete.

"The image was missing the fact that God is in the business of resurrecting things, bringing life out of death.  And so I went back and redid the drawing and this time I included the resurrection."

Now Joe travels the country using his gift to help other see Christ. He encourages other artists and churches to use art to reach the lost. Joe’s latest project, Sandstory is a live presentation of his artwork…

"The most important thing that I have learned is that God could take my gift, a gift that I really didn’t think had any value to Him, and He can use it in a very powerful way. What kept me from seeing that was the anger and bitterness that I was carrying in my heart. When I was willing to let that go and forgive somebody who hurt me, then I was able to see the value of my gift. I realized that if we take our story, our life story, and we put it into God’s story. His story then completes ours and we begin to understand the scope of our story."