God and Creativity Another View

Today in my devotional reading, I found myself in Exodus reading God’s immensely detailed plan for the tabernacle of Moses. I am always struck every single time I read this passage by how detailed it is. There wasn’t a lot of room for creativity on this project. God had a very specific way that He wanted everything done.

Here’s a video from TabernacleMan.com that shows part of the plan.

Creativity is one of God’s greatest gifts to us, not just those of us who are “artistic” but for everyone who has ever faced a problem. In much of our lives when it comes to creativity, the sky’s the limit, but then there are other times. In these times we need to respect God’s boundaries and His plan first and foremost.

This is especially true of God’s Word. Anyone who has read more than one of my posts will know I am all about finding creative ways to present the Gospel to the world around us. I believe God has given us immense flexibility for creativity in this area and that He has given us immense creativity for this very purpose. To find new ways to reach people with the truth that can and will set them free. There is however one area where creativity is neither needed nor allowed and that is with the Word itself. It is the Word of God and God has given it to us just as He wanted it to be. We dare not do anything that changes the meaning of what He said. When we either add to the Word or subtract from it, we remove it’s power because it is no longer God’s Word.

God has a really specific way and a really specific plan. We deviate from the Word at our peril. In these times creativity has to take a back seat, we must surrender our will and our way and follow God’s plan to the letter.

Isn’t that what it means to submit our creativity to God?

The Art Show that Didn’t Happen (for me)

For weeks now, I have been excited for the art show I was to participate in on Saturday. All the work had to be created on site and it was going to be a lot of fun.

I was coming off a rough week, nothing major just a pile of little frustrations and aggravations that made me kind of stressed out. The art show was to be my Island of calm. Six hours of creating anything I wanted. My goal was to create to the glory of God and allow Him to use me and my work as He saw fit. No agenda beyond making stuff and serving Him. Several things happened over the course of the week that told me I needed to relax a little and find my joy again and I figured that the art show was where it was going to happen.

Well the show was about an hour and a half away from my house, so I loaded about half my studio into my car and headed there, anticipating a very relaxing day. I got about ten miles away from the site of the show when it happened. I began to hear a squeaking, squealing sound under my hood followed by thumping and jerking. I was following a nice guy who volunteered to lead me when I found myself slightly lost. When I pulled my car over he noticed I was no longer following and turned around. He pointed me to a parking lot just ahead and asked if I could get the car to a parking lot in the clearing ahead, so i limped it there and that is where it gave out completely. When I saw what the parking lot was I couldn’t believe it. I pastor Dave Weiss had my car die on the parking lot of a strip club. (no it wasn’t open and no I wouldn’t have gone in if it was.)

My first thought was Lord if you want me to relax you have a funny way of showing it. I was more than a little upset and my funk continued. My wife came and picked her husband up at the strip club, something neither or us ever thought we would say, and we went home. No art show for me.

But here’s the thing. I got home and got by myself and prayed (a large part of which felt more like venting to God, its okay He understands). I got out a lot of my stress and frustration and felt his peace start to come over me. A different message came to me than the one I planned for Sunday which I will post to tangle a little later in the week about a man named David who ended up where he didn’t belong, It seems somewhat appropriate don’t you think. I had been reading Psalm 51 earlier in the week and thought it was just for me but I began to see how it applied to a lot of what had happened in the week.

I sat down at my computer and started to write when my cell phone rang. It was someone I have been praying for for a long time asking me if I wanted to go for a walk. We had a great time and some really good discussion and I would have missed it had I been at the show. Once again God knew what He was doing. I missed the show, but God had something better.

This is one of the pieces I was going to paint at the show. Many of you may have seen it before but if not, check it out. I think it has a good message for us all.

God’s Plan

This is a copy of one of the pieces I did in worship at the recent church planters conference I attended. The theme of the evening was based around the concept that we were each created by God for a unique purpose, that we each hold a part of his plan for the universe. My task was to illustrate this. Now you’d think it would be easy, this is after all a cornerstone of my call in ministry, but it was surprisingly difficult. I got the idea of having the hand of God plugging a person into something pretty quickly but the problem came when trying to create the person. You see it had to be an image that represented everyone, all ages, all races, both genders, etc. It was a conundrum largely because it was ultra important not to leave anyone out, because our faith tells us that God didn’t leave anyone out. As I was praying the mirror came to mind and it solves the problem easily, every person who looks at this piece will realize that God has put them in the world, uniquely created, gifted and experienced for a specific purpose.

You are uniquely qualified to do something no one else can do. To put it simply, you are not an accident, there is a place in God’s plan uniquely created for you and you were uniquely created and equipped for it. Finding it is finding the meaning of your life. Your gifts and talents and yes even your experience both good and bad are clues as to what it is. Seek the Lord, pray and live it out. You were created on purpose for a purpose so live on purpose.

Helping People Find Their Niche

Sometimes the best thing you can do for a new believer is to help them find where they fit. Today I want to share about one of the first people to do that for me. Most of what I have been doing can be traced back to that event. If this video blesses you, share it with your pastor.