For all the creativity enthusiasm evidenced in multiple creativity websites, blogs, books, conferences, and talks, there’s a black hole at the center of most of them.
There’s no Creator.
There are multiple creators but there’s no Creator. It’s a Creator-less creativity. It’s creativity hovering somewhere in mid-air, neither grounded in the creative work of God, nor aiming at the glory of our Creator. It’s a creativity that worships and serves the creature rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:25).
Crippled Creativity
As long as it remains such, it’s going to be a crippled creativity. How can it be otherwise? If we deny or ignore the source of all creativity, and if we take to ourselves the applause for any and all creativity, can we expect the Creator to keep sharing His creativity with us?
Or to put it more positively, how much more might we create, discover, and invent if we started (and continued) by acknowledging our 100% dependence on our Creator, and if we gave the glory of our discoveries, inventions, and creations to Him alone?
Who knows how many diseases we would cure, how many energy problems we would solve, how many new masterpieces would be painted, how many new technologies would be invented, how many innovative businesses would be established, etc? On a more ordinary level, who knows how much more satisfaction we would get in our everyday callings by more consciously living as our Creator’s image-bearers.
Ground, Glory and Gas of Creativity
In future articles, I want to demonstrate that the ground, glory, and “gas” of all creativity is our Creator God. I want to pull creativity out of its present precarious mid-air uncertainty and to connect it, and all creatives, to our Creator.
It’s hard to understand anything without connecting it to the foundational biblical teaching on creation. But it’s especially hard to understand creativity, or make any progress in it, without our Creator.
Creator denial
And, of course, if our Creator is not only ignored but his very existence denied, then we can’t reasonably expect Him to share much of His creativity with us, can we?
I know a pastor who used to be regularly invited to speak about theological and moral issues in universities and colleges. In one debate, the initially friendly reception turned hostile the moment he told the students that research did not involve creating facts or truths but only in discovering the facts and truths that God had already created.
The room temperature wasn’t helped when the pastor went on to argue that we were all dependent on God for revealing these truths and facts to us, and that without His revelation, we wouldn’t find out anything new!
But that’s the truth. And I firmly believe that if we acknowledged our Creator more and practiced such dependence upon Him, creativity would flow and flood, and our labs and workshops would be unable to contain the discoveries and inventions He would give us access to. It would also elevate the more mundane creativity we exercise in our daily callings.
Next we’ll we look at Creationist Quarterbacks!
Image Credit: BigStockPhoto.com
Previous Posts in Created to Create series
Competitive Creativity
“But I’m just a Mom!”
Check out and Tweets of the Day are on vacation.