Artists and creatives sometimes think that what they do has nothing to do with God or religion. Even many Christian creatives think so. before.
But the gospel has changed the way I look at creativity.
Creativity is worship
God created the universe and everything in it (the most creative act of all) to display his glory. When we create, we display His glory. We worship God through the talents he has given us.
Much of the Bible is poetry and song, and the rest tells his story in creative, diverse ways. His Word is a story, a song, a poem. It’s art.
Our art is not just something that provides an escape from reality or a way to express emotions. Our art is for God’s glory.
You could try to create for your own glory, but what would you get out of it? Temporary satisfaction that fades as you starve and crave more accomplishments and accolades. It has never been extinguished. I’m never satisfied.
But if we create for God’s glory – as we were created to do – we find lasting satisfaction. One of the most intimate and beautiful ways to worship God is by creating something beautiful that displays his glory.
Yes, you are creative
Each of us is the result of God’s great and perfect creation. We are strokes of paint on the great canvas of our Artist.
Even if you don’t think you are a creative person, you are made in the image of the most creative God. As bearers of his image, we are creative. We all. Let me prove it to you.
One of the most intimate and beautiful ways to worship God is by creating something beautiful that displays his glory.
My 16-year-old sister would argue that she’s not creative, but she is. She sees God’s beautiful world and paints it with her own hand. She works long hours, turning lines into shapes and colors into pictures. She sits down at the piano and her hands meet the ivory, causing it to sing the most magnificent melody. She sings songs like our mother and her smile alone tells a story. My sister is creative.
My 7 year old brother is creative. He cannot sit still long enough to draw or color, as most children like to do. But his mind works faster than anyone can handle. He plays like a child with a story to tell. Maybe one day he’ll write it down – or maybe he’s meant to tell his stories in a different way. My brother is creative.
Even my 13-year-old sister is creative. She may be young, but she holds a passionate fire in her bones. With that flame, I know she will find a way to ignite souls one way or another. She creates stories in her mind like I do, with an endless imagination. My youngest sister is creative.
My mother is creative. I hear her sing before I can speak. Her voice is a gift that she uses to sing, to speak, to teach. She turns our house into a home, with love and unity. The loving, tender work of a mother and wife is also an art. She gave birth to three children in this world. If that’s not a creative act, what is? My mother is creative.
My father is a creative person. He works harder than any man I know. Work can be art. He helps and cares for others with grace and teaches and leads with humility and wisdom. He also protected a shepherd, just as any good father and husband should. His love is deep and his strength is found in the Lord who created him. Whether leading our family as a father and husband or leading a church as an elder, he is an artist. My father is a creative person.
We cannot be creative without God
Without God I have no words to write. Without God the artist has no inspiration. The dancer has no rhythm. The singer has no voice. We cannot create something out of nothing as our God can. Our creativity comes from him and him alone.
It may seem that we can create on our own, that our inventive ideas stem from personal experience or simply from observations of our world. But where do all these things come from? Are our experiences just a random series of events that accidentally find their way into our lives? Where does the beauty of nature come from? Where do human emotions draw their strength from? Surely it can’t be a coincidence. It can’t be an accident.
We cannot create something out of nothing as our God can. Our creativity comes from him and him alone.
I thought my creations were my own. All I had to do was dig into my imagination and pull beautiful things from the depths of my own mind. I didn’t think about where my ideas came from.
But then I realized that when I create, I do something inspired by the beauty of the original creation of our world that God created at the beginning of time.
Our art reflects the beauty he first created. Our stories are fragments of the larger story he wrote before time began. Our desire to create beautiful things is a response to living in God’s beautiful creation and bearing his creative image.
It was so liberating to realize that my creative ideas were not my own. It is a great burden for creators to think that what they create must be original and only something them it can be said. When I humbly admit that my creative output is always just a remix of God’s original creation made in response to his formation I to wear his creative image, I find greater freedom and satisfaction. I thank God for every idea he allows me to have and for every word he allows me to write.
The gospel changes everything. Especially art.