Image/Pexels/Chris Wade

You should have seen us in our younger days. (By the way, I still don’t understand why some people are labeled “creatives” and others are not, but that’s a discussion for another day.)

We were “the creatives.”

We worked in advertising spaces where we understood what it means to be treated differently because of your talent and gifts!

Everyone in the room was exceptional in their field; we walked with our ‘noses in the air’ we were the “creatives.” We not only “made magic”; we lived it. Each work day we woke up to “create it, to make it happen.” The world had “no option but to bow, to notice.” Yes, we were in business, but we were also deep into “self-expression.”

Some, clad in black-rimmed eyeglasses, spoke slowly in brainstorming meetings and presentations, sometimes with an accent, lifting fingers mid-air to explain a “fresh concept.” We marveled!

Others, cross-legged in their leather chairs, glanced at the dim light from the MacBook all day, talking to nobody, uninterested in anybody, because they needed to “make room for the sacred idea”.

Apparently, we were the only “creatives,” whereas mothers in Gayaza organized kids’ rooms and washed utensils, while the math teacher in Mbale created nice lesson plans and the plumber in Bwaise dug sideways to find a leaking pipe. We were the “real creatives.” Come on! (We just didn’t say it out loud.)

We, of course, harmed no one; perhaps some of us suffered fragile identities that needed a little soothing from our golden calves of designs and downloads, words and workshops. Yet at some point, by God’s grace, I had to face myself. Was art and creativity becoming an idol, my identity? Had I moved past truly imagining the God who created and recreated me in Christ, the second Adam?

Yet even in those celebrated seasons, there were also moments where I wanted to create but got stuck, where nothing popped when I needed it to. There were also moments where a weird idea “flew in” like a gift from the sky, sometimes making you wish you had a waterproof laptop installed in the bathroom.

Creativity is good because God is; he created out of nothing. He’s the best there is; the whole world we also call “good” didn’t exist before a good God spoke it into existence. Last Sunday at church, the preacher pointed out in Genesis 1 how many times God spoke of things and they came into existence. It was a rude awakening for me to always forget myself and consider the original “Creative director” of this canvas, God!

No so-called “creative” has “arrived” before he/she arrives in God’s presence through Christ. The world’s first worker now invites us to carry his creation mandate forward. So we find ourselves with a plain canvas too, an empty room, a blank sheet, an open laptop, a messy kids’ room, a turned-on microphone, or a noisy office.

He expects us to bring forth his image in us, in the way we rhyme, paint, speak, teach, draw, sing, and email.

Of course, sitting down to create something that people like feels good, even surreal, and if we are not careful, we who create easily forget that idolatry is never about loving bad things only but is also about loving good things too much; we should want to be reconciled to God more than we want to be praised in the studio, boardroom, or “re-shared” among men online.

Then there is the frustrating part of the creative process; sometimes the colors don’t match, the piano keys sound flat, the curtains disappoint, and some client “feedback” feels like your life is meaningless.

But what if these valleys in our creativity are invitations to pray, to commune with the one who saved us, and to not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead? What if God uses our creative frustrations to prove himself the ultimate potter and we the clay as he shapes, forms, and aligns my distorted and fallen self to conform me to Christ, to sanctify?

As a word artist, I need to remember God spoke the world into being before I opened my mouth or laptop. Like writer Ann Vokskamp says, creativity does not come from within; it is bestowed from above.

When inspiration does not come at the time I want it, I should remember God wrote a book, not to inspire my self-expression, but to reveal himself, first and foremost. When my hit music invites celebration that “blows through the roof,” I should remember who sits above ceilings and roofs, in the heavens.

Every muse and inspiration is a gift from the Father above; every verse, every verb, every clean dish, every organized desk and room, every design pattern, and every paragraph is great artistry speaking of his marvelous light, not mine.

Creativity is not an invitation to my self-indulgence; sin is my biggest problem, and salvation is my biggest need. The reason the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 went up that high was because people like me looked at their God-given skills and tools and instead decided “making a name for themselves” was the goal of history.

In other words, next time you are tempted to place yourself at the center of your craft, remember poets like King David, who described one day in God’s presence as “better than a thousand days elsewhere,” and King Solomon, whose creative splendor couldn’t rival how God’s flowers dress up.

And oh, what a joy to create from a liberated place where I have forgotten about myself and remembered God, a place where the “image of God” in me, more glorious than “outputs,” has already been taken care of in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection!