I believe that anytime we are being creative we are experiencing something of God. This may be painting or baking, writing a poem, composing a song, doing crafts to decorate our home, thinking up a creative way to help a neighbor without embarrassing them or creating a plan to surprise someone who has been a special blessing to us or someone we love. Churches have benefited from the artistic gifts of architects, craftsmen, musicians, writers, sculptors, organizers, prayers, cooks, painters, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, computer whizzes, tenders of broken and frail souls and gentle challengers of the self-satisfied. Every creative idea that is "more" than has been understood before, or tried before, or considered before, represents a blessing from the God who longs for us to embrace all good things.
So as you consider your life this week, think about how you can step up personally, be a cheerleader for someone else who is working to step up, and, as you embrace that understanding you don't have to do it alone. Welcome God's love, light, hope, joy, promise and essence into your efforts, because otherwise the mundane, the mediocre, the insincere, the self-focused nature of our culture will lead you to despair and hopelessness.
If you work among the homeless and see the depth and breadth of the need, the fact that there is no humane way to compel folk to make better decisions is crushing and, having heard some of their stories you may even begin to consider that their approach is not so outlandish as it seemed from our clean, dry, well-provisioned homes. It becomes too easy to burn out and give up. But if you come with an awareness that we are only planting seeds of care, attention, hope, and the idea that the fragile person before us is wholly loved and accepted and approved of by a God who sees what we cannot, then comes the capacity to endure while walking with them in their sorrow and comes the capacity to give up our own ideas in favor of God's perspective on "success" in these whited fields.
What new thing will you create this week?
So as you consider your life this week, think about how you can step up personally, be a cheerleader for someone else who is working to step up, and, as you embrace that understanding you don't have to do it alone. Welcome God's love, light, hope, joy, promise and essence into your efforts, because otherwise the mundane, the mediocre, the insincere, the self-focused nature of our culture will lead you to despair and hopelessness.
If you work among the homeless and see the depth and breadth of the need, the fact that there is no humane way to compel folk to make better decisions is crushing and, having heard some of their stories you may even begin to consider that their approach is not so outlandish as it seemed from our clean, dry, well-provisioned homes. It becomes too easy to burn out and give up. But if you come with an awareness that we are only planting seeds of care, attention, hope, and the idea that the fragile person before us is wholly loved and accepted and approved of by a God who sees what we cannot, then comes the capacity to endure while walking with them in their sorrow and comes the capacity to give up our own ideas in favor of God's perspective on "success" in these whited fields.
What new thing will you create this week?
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