Creativity can be exhausting.
A lot of people tend to think about creativity in terms of of inspiration. As if one moment I’m sitting at the table, eating breakfast, and the next I’m furiously scribbling lyrics on a scrap of paper. But that rarely, if ever happens.
Creativity is mostly about hard work. About sitting down with a blank sheet of paper in front of me and staring at it until my eyes dry out. About looking at a blank computer screen and desperately trying to formulate complete sentences in my mind. About pleading with God to give me words, or chords, or creative lyrics. I get burned out after about an hour of creative work. I can’t keep it up for hours on end.
After an unproductive session of songwriting or book writing or blog writing, I feel frustrated. I look down at what I’ve written and realize that a four year old could have done better. This happens a lot. I get stymied. Writers block. Whatever you want to call it.
But I still have an impulse to be creative. Why?
I think it goes back to Genesis 1:27, where we read:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
God is a creating God. He speaks worlds into existence. He sprinkles stars into the universe. And He makes me and you in His image. My drive to create comes from God. So does yours.
And by the way, when we talk about creativity, we shouldn’t limit it to song writing, or film making, or photography. Creativity is anything that reflects the creative, order-making image of God.
When an artist brings order and shapes to random colors, that reflects the creative character of God. When my wife organizes our pantry and brings order to the chaos of spices and flour and cookies, that reflects God’s creative image. When a businessman puts numbers into a spreadsheet in an orderly fashion, that also reflects God’s creative image.
All of us are artists in our own way. We all have a drive to create and bring order, and that drive comes from God.
The question then becomes, are we cultivating our desire to create? In other words, are we putting our creative, organizational desires into action? Are you writing the music that’s been in your head? Are you organizing the room that’s been driving you crazy? Are you creating the budget that’s been on your to-do list? All these creative endeavors honor God if done for His glory.
I want to discuss creativity more in future posts. But for now, here are questions for discussion and commenting:
- How are you creative?
- How can you be more creative for the glory of God?
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{ 34 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you for the post. Just today i had to organize my address list at work and was not having a joyful attitude towards it. To know that even the ability to get it down together is being creative
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About the questions:
* How am I creative?
I am good at co-ordinating wid people at work for meetings and events. At home i am good at reorganizing the furniture and making more space around the house and trying out somethin new in cooking.
* How can I be more creative for the glory of God?
By first reminding myself that I am doin it unto Him. Not to take any work that i do as small and insignificant ( or that its too low for me to do). To do my work to the best of my ability
Great insights Caroline. I think your last point is really important. It can be really easy to see minor things as unimportant, when in reality they are reflecting the creative image of God. Great point.
* How are you creative? Coordinating events. I enjoy photography (don't know how good I am at it). Designing flower arrangements.
* How can you be more creative for the glory of God? I think Caroline hit it on the head. Remembering why I am doing what I'm doing. I'm not administrating a church-wide event just because it's my job. I'm glorifying my Savior and mirroring Him. I can also remember that I create because God has given me those desires. If they are from God and they glorify Him, shouldn't I pursue God-glorifying ways to pursue them more often?
I love this quote and I have it by my desk at work: "When we work, create, and order, we are imitating our God. God loves to see His creatures imitating Him."
Why is it that we limit creativity to the arts? You're right on when you say that organizing an event is being creative. We tend to think of creative people as disorganized, but some creative people are very organized. That's part of their creativity. Thanks for sharing that!
-How are you creative?- Well I am a trumpet player and so generally when I feel like being creative I pick up my horn and improvise. Usually on some sort of blues or doing something along with a favorite album.
-How can you be more creative for the glory of God?- That's something I've been wrestling with recently in relation to improvising on my trumpet. Years ago I heard another musician offer the suggestion of when improvising, "Tell a story." So of late when improvising I've been trying to think as I play a sort of prayer/psalm-esque music that reflects what I'm praying in my head. It's different and can be pretty rough, but getting there.
Wow, the idea of playing a psalm on the trumpet is really intriguing. Any way you could post something for us to hear?
This is a great word, Stephen. I have forever it seems had a creative bent as an integral part of me. These days, I write music, try to blog (when I can convert that bank page into groups of meaningful symbols) and work nominally on countless unfinished "books" I'm writing. When I was younger, instead of doing crossword puzzles I found it more interesting to try and create them. It just satisfied my mind more. Making stuff from Legos, working in a shop full of tools, making chain mail even at one time – I just wanted to create, and still do.
Interesting though, I always had more or less considered the obsessive compulsive need to sort, organize, rearrange and restore order to chaos an opposing rather than complimentary trait. I'm still chewing on your idea that they are instead complimentary. I'm having trouble making that settle in my mind – not because it's wrong, but because I've thought otherwise for SO long.
(continued…)
How am I creative? By leaning heavily on the Lord's grace for doing all things. As a mom, my creativity usually doesn't garner much attention other than my family's as I home educate our children or prepare a meal. The Lord is faithful in giving the inspiration whether it is teaching another grammar lesson or preparing supper for the upteenth time. It's amazing what prayer can do for a pound of hamburger.
That's one of the points that I wanted to make, but ran out of space. Even when the only people enjoying something is the family, it still brings honor to God. Your creativity in home schooling reflects the character of God, and God loves to see his reflection in us. Great point.
(… almost done)
This is the right question: how to use it for the glory of God? A good start is to not use it to contradict his Glory; to make everything we write, from the overtly God centered worship song to the sarcastic tweet never contradict what we know of God: His holiness, His righteousness, His justice… An even better next step is to press His will against everything we do, stamping our creative output with a "God centered" mold making all we do take the shape he would give it. Then God is there in the song, in the blog, in the oddball reply to the twitter we laughed at. Even the mundane and silly, while not evangelistic or gospel rich, doesn't escape his shaping influence. Also how we accept praise or criticism for our creative endeavors should honor God as well; humbly honoring His Name rather than our own while doing so.
These are outstanding thoughts Lee. I love the image of stamping our creative output in the mold of God. It doesn't necessarily mean that everything we do is explicitly about God, but it does mean that everything has some flavor of God. That's a great way of putting things.
I like to bake and decorate cookies. I like to make the most beautiful cookies I can possibly make. I get joy out of creating something beautiful. Then I think, Man, this is NOTHING compared to what God can do. And it makes me worship, because a) He is so awesome and fairer than anything I could ever make or even the things HE'S made (think "Fairest Lord Jesus"), and b) because it's cool that we get to be like him, at least a little bit, in that sees fit to allow us to be able to create things.
Still looking forward to meeting you, Stephen!
I think the joy we get out of creation is yet another way we reflect God's image. He gives us the gift of creation so that we can have joy. If we then turn that joy into praise, we honor God! What a wonderful gift. And we get to enjoy the cookies as well!
*HE sees fit
One thing that I've known but have needed to be reminded of is that what I create is nothing new. Once I get over that block – the block that says I have to be new – then my creativity explodes. Instead of trying to be the newest thing out there, it's more about creating something that's encouraging. It's more about reminding others of what they already know.
That was a major breakthrough for me last year. I'm hoping to continue the trend being a reminder.
I like what you said, though, about creating because God creates. It does reflect on Him when we create. It's like a master artist seeing His students painting – that's got to be so refreshing.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
A master artist seeing his students painting – wow that's a great image. I hadn't even thought of that one.
I love thinking about creativity in a wider definition than just the arts. To me creativity is bringing our own uniqueness to a song, or a photograph, or a decoration or a painting.
I am a keyboard player, and whenever I play, I try to bring small changes to each verse of a hymn, or improvise on the melody to change mood or inspire singing of the congregation towards the words they are singing.
To be more creative for the glory of God: well, I want to think about that. Sometimes I am lazy about how I do certain things, and do them as if they are not inspiring at all. If I could learn to approach more things with an idea of being creative, how exciting would that be? Thank you, Steve.
I agree, I think we need to expand creativity beyond just the arts. Creativity is bringing God's creative image to bear upon anything – whether that be a hymn, or a photo, or a blog post, or a messy room. Great point.
It almost derailed my whole reading plan when I came across the “image of God” reference. Did a search in Logos and I’m still a little weary from just trying to get my thoughts around that phrase.
As for creativity, I always feel like I need to work on having more tools (maybe a guy thing?) to feed my creativity. For instance, I need to work more on learning the fret board, using alternate chords, learning more finger picking patterns, etc.
Man, I need to work more on my guitar skills as well. Man…I'm rusty. I think I also need more tools, but again that might be a guy thing!
Stephen,
Speaking new worlds into the void is easy for the Almighty. Me? Not so much.
But isn't the effort thrilling when something is actually birthed?
Dave
Yeah, when you really nail something creative it's such a cool feeling.
Please, do write more about creativity!
* How am I creative?
Used to be creative, but not anymore.
* How can I be more creative for the glory of God?
Get my creativity back so I can go back to work
Marcos – What do you mean that you used to be creative but that you're not anymore?
Like Jessica, I enjoyed photography a lot, and I'm graduating on Graphic Design, so creativity really concerns me. I used to be creative but now it's very hard for me to have an idea, or, in case i have one, to put it on paper/screen. I'm stuck.
I’m really glad someone I follow linked to this on Twitter. Recently I’ve got into sewing and quilting. At church on Sunday I was praying about how I can use that for God’s glory. One thing we can do is use our creative gifts to serve others. I also like card making – I’m going to use that to make my sister-in-law’s wedding invitations.
sorry I don't find a lot of creativity in a business spreadsheet
i attribute that more to the fall of man
Oh Josh, there's lots of creativity in spreadsheets. I do them ALL the time. It takes much creativity to learn and work with Excel!
I agree that creativity is exhausting. I've been a software engineer for almost 7 years, and it still requires a lot of endurance to create instructions for the computer for 8+ hours a day. I've been finding that taking mental rest breaks, both during the day (short breathers), in the evening, on the weekends, and a couple of weeks a year (to totally switch gears) — all those are essential to maintaining high creative output without negative stress during my work weeks.
I guess changing diapers is a good enough mental break. "Honey? I'm burned out from writing all this code. Can you let me change the next diaper that presents itself?"
(I work from home.)
Stephen, I think that writing (English) is more exhausting than writing computer code. When my supervisors have asked me to write up about our work for research papers, I've burned out much more quickly. Programming languages are conceptual short-hand. I guess computers are much more predictable recipients than humans.
How can I be more creative for the glory of God? I'm not sure about how to be more creative. But, I definitely want to cease being so selfish and serve others with my creativity rather than just serving myself or boosting my own ego. My parents taught me young to think on my feet and work hard, which has paid off. I think now I need to be diligent and not waste what I've been given. Do you have any thoughts on that, Stephen? How can we be good stewards of the creativity and intellectual energy that we've been given?
I don’t know if this is being creative because it’s so passive, but I love to look, listen, watch, read…just take things in and then think. How amazing the colors of a painting are, how seamlessly instruments weave in and out in an overture, how trusting the little kiddies are of their care provider as they go on their afternoon walk, how cool that someone could think of this idea or had this experience…etc.
Thinking requires creativity, no? I feel like it does, but perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I’m a creativity appreciator.
Could sharing jokes be “being creative”? I like really cheesy, corny jokes and witty puns and whenever I come across one, I store it in my brain to laugh over it again later. Sometimes in conversation I’m reminded of a joke and I share it with another person. It’s fun to hit the joke juuuuust right…get the other person thinking, say the punchline, and THEN…laugh together.
It’s hard to tell jokes over the internet but, did you hear about the scarecrow who won the Nobel Prize??
He was out standing in his field.
(Isn’t that so clever??? It’s one of my favorite puns. I’ve never actually tried making one of my own though.)
I think of creativity as recombining things that already exist. God already did the ex nihilo creative work, and now I take ideas from the order and designs in nature as well as from enjoying the work of other human creators in the image of their Maker. I collect a bunch of pieces from everywhere that strike me as reflective of God's genius and beauty, spread them out before me, and sometimes I see a possibility of regrouping that really excites me. It would almost make itself if it wasn't for the work of starting and following through with the "vision" I saw, and being willing to modify it along the way to suit a more defined purpose or improve upon that embryo of a thought. I'm a painter mainly, and a wannabe designer and craftsman of all sorts of things, but I'm definitely prone to laziness, waiting for a fit of motivation to spring out of nowhere when I know that it takes resolve, scheduling, and actual DO-ing to get creativity happening. The determination to consistently support creative thought and progress seems sometimes akin to me trying to "uphold the universe" as does Christ each day, though it is with no strain that He does it. Prayer for help is much more effective than what helps I devise alone, though both together will show His work of grace in our perseverance.
Totally agree with the comments that creativity extends beyond the arts. Kudos to all mothers, homemakers, teachers, gardeners, computer programmers, contractors, etc…no one escapes being made in the image of a Creator. If it is part of His Personality, it is part of ours.