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What is Creativity?
I’d like to offer a definition of creativity: Using the resources God has given you to make something that benefits you and others. The first thing to notice in this definition is that we don’t create out of nothing. There are always resources that we draw from. Resources include raw materials, such as paper, pen, piano, pipe. Raw materials also include your culture, your personality, how you were raised. And raw material includes all of the stream of ideas that have flowed down to you through the millenia. Creativity grows out of all the materials that God has given you. Once you have the raw materials, you combine them. Most…
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The Backdoor to Joy
What is joy? How do you define it? People wonder all the time what joy is. How do you get it? How do you keep it? We try to figure out what will give us joy and happiness. Usually that means I’ll do what I want, when I want, That’s My Prerogative, and you’re not the boss of me. Or as Frank Sinatra sang, I Did It My Way. Is doing it our way the formula for joy, for happiness? No, because if it was, we’d all be doing that. The proof’s in the pudding, right? If living life the way we want brought us real and sustainable joy, we’d…
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It Rains Diamonds on Neptune
It rains diamonds on Neptune Far beyond our sight In the deep darkness Of an endless night Isn’t this already Beyond our imagination? What else can there be Hidden in creation? A whisper of the miraculous The lightest touch of a presence Displaying wisdom and glory Diversity and abundance And yet, what of our planet? What falls out of our skies? We take for granted Our most important prize God has a joyful bias Toward bringing us pleasure Diamonds and life Beyond measure
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Being. Happy and Fortunate.
Sometimes, particularly after a bad experience, I wonder how God’s heart must break from all the evil that we do to each other. The harm, hate and abuse we pour into each other. It’s bad enough what this does to us, I can only imagine God’s pain from seeing it. There was a particular horror that Jesus experienced. God brutally murdered. Judged and executed in full public display. Jesus’ father forsook him, his friends either denied or betrayed him, his community rejected him. He experienced all of the pain and misery, harm, hate and abuse that we’ve suffered. This means he understands and can relate to us. The resurrection of…
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And It Is Wonderful
Psalm 139:13-14 says… For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. This portion of Psalm 139 is about God and us – in that order. And it is wonderful. Biblically, God is always the initiator. In verse 13 of this Psalm, God forms us. This combination of creating and giving life is intrinsic to God. It’s who he is. There is no other life-giving source in the universe. Life pours out of God. Where he is, life is. Where he works, life results. …
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How will You Live as an Artist in God’s Presence?
This is the last of 7 blogs on releasing your creative potential. If our chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever, then the purpose of our art, and our life as an artist, is to enjoy God. Glorifying God and enjoying him. One leads to the other. This doesn’t mean that every moment of our artistic life is a sugar high. Enjoying God is the slow, steady build-up of knowing that being in his arms is the right place to be. Creating art knits our heart to God. This reality is certainly one of the reasons that creativity is a spiritual battle. This battle, this struggle,…
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What does God-led Creativity Look Like?
This is the fourth of 7 blogs on releasing your creative potential. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10 We are God’s creation, his poem, his work of art. We’re carefully, lovingly created and formed for his exquisite pleasure and our deepest joy. We’re created and formed for God’s purpose. His purpose is always good, although sometimes it does not feel that way.
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How has God Built You?
This is the second of 7 blogs on releasing your creative potential. Psalm 139:13-14 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. God has made each of us unique. Special. One of a kind. Each of us has something no one else has. And each of us has something the world needs.
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What is the Connection between God and Creativity?
This is the first of 7 blogs on releasing your creative potential. What does God think about artists? Does he care? Does he even notice? If everything was right, if we could clearly see the brushstrokes on the canvas of the created world, then the first words of the Bible would inspire endless creativity, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
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Does God Care about Your Artwork?
Does God care about your artwork? He does. Everyone expresses themselves creatively. It can’t be helped. It’s one of the things we’re born to do. It’s part of what the Bible refers to when it says we’re made in God’s image. (Genesis 1:26.) An essential part of God’s nature is that, beyond all possible imagination of abundance and diversity, he’s creative (Genesis 1:1). We reflect that part of his nature in the abundance and diversity of our art, music, movies, etc. The difference is, God creates out of nothing. We, at best, “borrow” any material we can find and repurpose it. As Picasso said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”
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Goya’s Vision
One of Francisco Goya’s most famous paintings is Saturn Devours His Son. There are many interpretations of this painting. From the first time I saw it, I felt that it represented the difference between God and Satan. Whereas God is loving and merciful, going so far as to send his son as a redemption and restoration for us, Saturn (Satan) devours his children. The image has alway stuck with me. It’s a reminder of the difference between death and destruction, life and love. I’ll go with love.
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Expressions and Intentions of the Creator
In his book, The Holy Spirit, Sinclair B. Ferguson shares this gem about the work of the Spirit in re-ordering and beautifying God’s creation, and the Spirit’s prompting of this work through God’s people… “In pursuing his purposes among his called-out people, God’s Spirit also granted gifts of design and its execution to men like Bezalel and Oholiab (Ex. 31:1-11; 35:30-35). Again there is a significant theological pattern operative here. The beauty and symmetry of the work accomplished by these men in the construction of the tabernacle not only gave aesthetic pleasure, but a physical pattern in the heart of the camp which served to re-establish concrete expressions of the…
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Because We Can’t Help It
The most basic truth of art is that we create because we’re made in God’s image. It might also be the most controversial.
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Scarecrow, by Connell Patrick Byrne
Connell is a visionary artist. This painting, Scarecrow, is acrylic on canvas, 11×46. Here are Connell’s thoughts on this painting… “Discarded scarecrow hung on heavy timber, regaled in wind-torn garment and crimson shawl. A pork-pie crown to mock the king. The dried-up crop of human bondage hemmed in by a thick black wire as storm-clouds fill the wide horizons. A field of corn, dried up, dead, vanishing in the distance. It is my life, my heart; a prisoner hemmed in by the barbs of my own guilt. And there is God, not outside and far off. Calling for me to heal myself. But this scarecrow God, incarnate in flesh, joins me in this field…
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Hip Hops, Blues Rocks, Jazz Bops
Life has a rhythm. Because God put it there. When hip-hops, blues rock and jazz bops it’s because of one thing. Time. Time is a created entity, put into three-dimensional existence by God. Without time, there would be no music – nothing to play against. Without time, music, and life, would have no improvisation, counterpoint, syncopation, harmony, diversity. It’s all here for us, orchestrated by the hands of a loving, powerful and creative God. Rock on.
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Beyond This
I ALWAYS KNEW IT WAS THERE. The trick was getting to it. I fell into a chasm to find it. Pressing ever deeper, darker. It was the only way I knew how to look. Gradually my eyes opened and I thought I glimpsed it. The smell, the look, the taste, the touch. It was close, but that wasn’t it. And still I wanted it more. I had to have it. Being alive meant searching for it. Mist sometimes covered my path and I would be lost for months. Most of that time I wasn’t even aware I had forgotten about it. The place, the money, the people made me forget.…
