Dear People Who Keep Company With God,

While in the UK, we toured one of Britain’s national treasures, The Bridge Cottage. It is the childhood home of the artist, John Constable. His paintings are among the most popular and valuable in all of British art. What I found interesting were excerpts from some of his letters and journals. As talented and gifted as this man was he still had to deal with self-doubt and inner uncertainties about his creative abilities.

I think we all suffer with self-doubt and uncertainties, especially when we talk about being creative. We admire and celebrate the creative souls amongst us while wishing we could be one of them.

The truth is we all are creative. Creativity imageIf we are spiritual people, we are by our nature, creative people.

“The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being.” (Gen. 2:7)

The Creator breathed His image into us. We are creative people because the Creator’s image is in us.

Man fell and we lost touch with our creative nature. We hid from the Creator and began to live in fear (Gen. 3:10). Fear has cast a long dark shadow over our creative hearts.

Jesus Christ has unlocked our creative souls from the prison of fear and lies, but it takes trust and faith to walk out. There are voices telling us we are not enough. “You don’t have enough talent, gifting or calling. You will fail and everyone will see that you do not measure up.”

When we listen to those voices, 0ur hearts will slowly shut down and our dreams seem like only fantasy. We relegate ourselves to living vicariously through our creative heroes. Our life and relationship with Christ loses its color because we are not living true to who He created us to be.

When I first began to preach a friend informed me that I needed to find my own voice. It was encouraging in that he, being a seasoned minister, saw and heard the gift and calling in me. It was discouraging in that he didn’t hear the real me. I had a lot of questions swirling in my head about my identity, gifting and calling.

To find your own voice, you will have to wrestle with and overcome self-doubt and uncertainties. I look at it like the mountains Jesus spoke about in Mark 11. I had to learn how to talk back to them, challenging and refusing to submit to them. When you persistently do this, they will leave you, but will return later. Just don’t answer the door when they come knocking.

Living a creative lifestyle does not come easy. It is challenging, risky and you will fail at times.

In my early ministry, I preached a message on the finished work of the cross. A man, who I greatly respect, came to me afterwards and said, “I don’t know how anyone could talk about something so wonderful and powerful and it be so lifeless and dull.” He turned and walked off. I couldn’t have responded anyway. I was too stunned. He was right. After I pouted for a while, I let God use it to help me grow in my ministry.

Back in the 1980’s I felt an urge to write. I wrote a short article and gave it to a couple of friends that were experienced writers for their input. One of them sat me down and admonished for being so full of pride and presumption, thinking I could be a writer. The other man avoided me for weeks and told me he lost it when I asked him about it.

Creative living is challenging, but it beats the alternative.

Many Blessings, BW

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