What’s Your Big Idea?
Creativity is a big buzzword these days. According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth Edition, Copyright 2009), creation is defined as (among other things), “the act of creating” and “an original product of human invention or artistic imagination.”
And so we hear and read about creative designers, creative editors, and even the creative arts. But in reality, as far as creativity goes, we are no match compared to our heavenly Father. Within six days, He created the world and the universe in just the right size and proportion. Too near to the sun, and we would have been burnt to a crisp; too far away, and we would have frozen to death. The Lord our God even designed the Earth’s gravitational pull to be just perfect – too strong and we risked colliding with other planets; too weak a force would send our planet careening out into space.
Mankind is only capable of making use of existing materials to fashion useful and beautiful and elegant works of art, fashion, utility or design. To date, no man (or woman) has been able to make something tangible out of nothing, like what God did in the Genesis account of creation.
The search for the Philosopher’s Stone, by which it was believed that basal elements could be turned into gold, has inspired many searches and legends – but no basis to date so far.
But God has created us in His image, and although we do not have His level of creative powers, He has blessed us with other forms of creation, like building beautiful and useful things and turning ideas and thoughts into forms like music, art, science, and literature. In that light, every profession – be that of architect, builder, construction worker, musician, writer, civil servant, domestic worker or even parent – fits in this frame of reference.
A well-known story bears repeating here: A man walked down the street and saw a construction site. He stopped and, in fascination, watched three men busily working. The man noticed that there was something different about the three workmen’s attitude towards the task at hand. One workman looked quite stoical; the second, a bit more enthused; while the third workman smiled and happily whistled. When the man approached each of the workmen and asked what they were doing, the man with the stoical look answered, “I’m laying bricks.” The second workman said, “I’m building a wall.” But the whistling worker proudly answered, “I’m building a cathedral!”
Same job, but a different mindset shaped the attitudes of the three men. As Oscar Wilde said, “Two men look out from the same jail bars. One sees mud, the other sees stars.” The creative impulse can be used for good and evil, sometimes both being part of the same coin. Antibiotics kill germs, but their overuse can lead to the formation of antibiotic-resistant organisms that are now becoming public health nightmares.
As the senior demon Screwtape tells his nephew Wormwood in C. S. Lewis’s famous novel, “nothing is naturally on our side; pleasure, reason, and goodwill were created by an all-powerful God to be used for his purpose and glory” and all Wormwood and his fellow tempters can hope to do is distort these goods and prod humans to fall for their deception.
But that does not mean that we ought to take a negative view towards the creative act. Had a certain Reverend Wright persisted with the view that “if the Lord wanted man to fly, He would have given him wings,” his sons, Orville and Wilbur, might never have pioneered aviation history. Similarly, if the US Patent Office still held the view that “everything that needs to be invented has been invented,” the computer and X-Ray machine may have never seen the light of day. The right step for Christians to take is to thus act as agents of God to “prod” the creative arts toward the greater glory of God.
When the builder or architect considers his latest project as more than a house or office block, but as a family’s place of security and dreams or as a dream workplace, then the stage is set for a higher standard of quality that will not only satisfy the aesthetic but also the safety and profit margin aspects. This will be a better result than if the project was just considered as one which had to be done in the shortest possible time, with little more to consider besides the fear of liquidated damages for any delays.
Similarly, when the journalist thinks of his story less as an addition to his growing portfolio, but instead considers the emotions and sensitivities of his newsmakers, the result will be a piece that still maintains factual accuracy but now also combines sensitivity and understanding. In this respect, the creative act has become “redemptive” by helping to change the negative perspective attached to journalism, and “rehabilitated” the craft.
But the double-edged nature of the creative act makes such results almost hard to attain naturally – choices must be made towards certain goals. And those choices may not always be advantageous to one’s inclinations. So it is also with the stage or movie actor who chooses to play nude roles (because more demand and money comes his or her way) gets greater financial rewards but has brought his or her creative art to a lower level as a result.
The tools in the creative acts do not by themselves have any positive or negative value – that is only seen in the final result of their use. So it is critical that Christians do their best in putting such tools to good use for the Kingdom of God. Journalists and writers whose main focus is putting ideas and observations in print can therefore do this by using their talents in writing articles that bring glory to God and encourage His people, e.g., writing in church newsletters or arguing the case for the existence of God. One potent example is that of Lee Stroebel, who used his skills as a journalist to craft well-thought arguments supporting the existence of Jesus Christ and why He is the Savior of the world.
Perhaps the strongest examples for the putting of such creative artistry to use for God and His Kingdom have come from musicians like Lenny LeBlanc and Amy Grant, two artistes well-known in the fields of Christian and popular music. Both of them have been positive role models in their fields, writing and singing songs that are good examples to their audiences and that bring glory to God too.
But man’s creativity is not limited to the starting point of ideas and thought. Creativity also has the power to repair the damaged man and woman by transforming their mental and physical being. Take the prosthetics designer who lovingly and painstakingly crafts a prosthesis for a disabled or handicapped person, taking into account the person’s body structure, limb length, etc. The designer’s efforts show the extent he or she is willing to strive towards making the disabled person’s life easier, instead of harder. That is a form of “re-creation.” The architect who designs a hospital, taking into account the needs of the patients who will be warded there, also takes part in this process of “re-creation.” But here lies a major difference. Without the power of Jesus Christ, the creative act is limited in scope. Such limited creative power may be able to transform the physical and mental aspects of our lives, but the spiritual lies outside its reach. For only the creative power of Jesus Christ can transform us. Take the examples from the Bible – Jesus gave new life to the mentally ill man in the region of the Gerasenes; He healed many who were blind; He set free those controlled by evil.
God can take any person and recreate him or her. God can take any adulterated life and remake it. In the words of Paul, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor 5:17), i.e., our lives will be totally transformed. This is the power of Jesus Christ, and it is still available to us. Without that power, our spiritual beings become dry and lifeless. But God, who breathed life into Adam and Eve, can and wants to breathe new life into us when we ask Him. When His power is infused in our music, dance and drama, His spirit connects with the spirits of the people in the audience and brings them to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Black American scientist George Washington Carver was one example of what the power of Jesus could do to one life. During his lifetime, this son of slaves reputedly discovered three hundred uses for peanuts and hundreds more for soybeans, pecans and sweet potatoes, and also obtained three patents between 1925 and 1927. But Carver, who became a Christian when he was 10 years old, said many times, that his faith in Jesus was the only mechanism by which he could effectively pursue and perform the art of science. To Carver, God and science were both areas of interest, not warring ideas in his mind. He matured in his faith by placing his understanding of God firmly in the Bible. In attempts to teach his students, he defaulted first and foremost to making the name of Christ known. Carver taught that knowledge of God through the Bible and devotion to Jesus was paramount to what he could teach them pedagogically through numbers and formulas.
Or how about C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, the writers whose novels and fictional creations helped bring across the love and saving grace of God in ways no other medium could? Lewis’s novels like The Screwtape Letters, made the wiles of the Devil come alive, while Tolkien’s Middle-Earth tales, especially The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, is a well-crafted, subtle tale of Christ’s redemptive work in our lives.
That was what God did with the lives of three men whose hearts were surrendered to Him. We can do no less if we also surrender our lives to the living God. How can we be sure that we are agents of God’s creativity to the world? The following steps can help:
(a) Ensure that your mind is saturated with God’s Word daily.
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Ps 119:105).
(b) Commit your work and talents to God daily.
“Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this” (Ps 37:5).
(c) Ensure that you feed your mind with what is pure and beautiful and pleasing in God’s sight.
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things” (Phil 4:8).
(d) Be focused on your work and do not be distracted or “double-minded” (Jam 1:8).
So what is your big idea? If it is focused on giving glory to God, and He is in the plans, it cannot fail. See what God did with Carver, Lewis, and Tolkien. We can do no less with God on our side. May God bless us as we commit our work and lives to His continuous “re-creation” for His redemptive purposes.
