Permission To Create
Every Friday I join a community of bloggers for Five Minute Friday. One word prompt, five minutes. And I literally write it in 5 minutes. The prompt this week is … permission.
Creativity is in all of us. Human beings are natural born creators because we were created by God. God was the one who invented creation. He created us to discover new ways of doing things, finding shortcuts and then reveal these creations as inventions, or on a canvas, or music or visually through a movie, science, the stage or innovative ideas. With these creations we have lived within the boundaries of the creator, who is God.
God’s recorded creativity began with the Creation story in the book of Genesis. 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was completely dark and there were deep, deep waters. God’s spirit covered the surface of the waters to signal that something dramatic was going to happen on the earth. God’s spirit is alone. Suddenly, the spirit God said out loud “Let there be light.” His words brought an instant brightness that filled the entire earth. God saw that the light was good, but had some more ideas about how light should operate on the earth. God thinks to himself, what can happen next? In my thoughts, I believe that God has two thoughts. 1). Darkness for a long time would not work for the artistic work that he was about to create. 2). Light for a long time would not work as well. Thus with these two thoughts, God thought that the light would need a contrast from the darkness and then decided to separate the light from darkness. As with anything that there needs to be a name with any created being. After creating the darkness and light, God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day. In all of this we see God take all authority and give himself the permission to be creative. He used every ounce in his creativity to create the world for us for his glory.
Everyday I hear of others who announce they are not creative. I am not a writer, or a singer, or a dancer or an artist, but they have the ability to do all of the above. Maybe not perfectly, but we are able to show these gifts. Why don’t we give ourselves the permission to be creative? Why do we not accept our place as creatives? We were created by God for God. We are all creatives. All a part of God’s handiwork to do good works and to share the Gospel to a dying world.
Ephesians 2:10, NIV: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
