Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about creation. And I think that creation is underrated.
Think of all the ways that we try to align ourselves with God and the Holy Spirit; we pray, we read scripture; we try to take on the traits and characteristics of Jesus by loving and forgiving and seeking peace and justice. We value the things that God values; honesty, humility, selflessness, patience, etc. Many people of faith can tell you all about the virtues of The Lord and faith in Jesus. And I think that these virtues, when we choose to apply them and live by them, produce a life full of joy and contentment; full of hope and love and freedom and assurance.
But what about creation? I’m not talking about creation the noun, as in the Earth and animals and people (although there is much we can learn about God from that too). I mean creation the verb.
The act of creating something new that never existed before.
Often, it seems that we only talk about God as the One who created and not as One who creates. I think it can be dangerous if we don’t open our eyes to the truth that it is STILL God’s nature to create. “God created the heavens and the Earth…God created the day and the night…God created the land and the sea…God created… ” These are beautiful truths about how The Lord is the author of the world we live in but they are also truths about God himself; about what he is like.
God loves to create! He loves it so much that when he made us out of clay and in his image he gave us the ability to create, because that’s what God does; he creates.
I would hate for this beautiful characteristic of God to only be considered when we are debating others on issues of the beginning of the world. As we develop as a race and as science continues to teach us new things about the universe and our world it can be easy to get lost in debate. We hear more and more people on the news or on the radio poking question after question at the origin of our planet and as science and technology advance so do the theories about how we came to be.
Creation is so much more than ammo to be used as our argument for the beginning of the world. When we let creation become minimized to a historical event, although an extremely beautiful and important one, we fail to see that the world we know now is still, today, the fingerprint of God all around us.
The ability to create is such a beautiful gift; one that is woven into the very fabric of our existence. I hope to live life with eyes that see His glory in all creation and even in things not yet created. It is important to know who made us, but I think it is just as important to know why and to take joy in thinking about what will come next.
Peace,
Pastor Todd
I agree with you Todd. Except that creativity isn’t underrated everywhere. There are places and industries where creativity is valued and often paid high $$ for. It’s an interesting time we are living in. Creating is becoming more valuable but because of the way we can use the Web to share our creations they are more prevalent and easier to find. Supply and demand at work.
One time I went through a Purpose Driven Life small group. I didn’t get out of it what I was supposed to but I did realize that we are all created in Gods image and that means we are all creators, and our purpose is to create. Whether we create relationships, music, a community garden, websites, or a mean pot of chili, it’s important that we create and flex that part of our humanity every chance we get.
It’s often really hard because of what is called our Lizard Brain. The lizard brain is our fight or flight reflex, it’s the simple part of brain that is the source of anxiety. We get scared of finishing our creations because then it’s out there for people to see and make comment on. I just finished a great book on this subject by Seth Godin called Linchpin. It’s a good one.
I didn’t mean to write a whole blog post of my own here. Sorry.