:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

“Serve God! Don’t give in to the lust of the flesh!”

That’s what a preacher at an Atlanta subway station bellowed at my dad and me in 1996. We were on our way to the track and field finals for the Olympics. The sudden condemnation from a supposed Christian ally stung. I began to wonder, “Are we really sinning by ‘wasting’ our time at this event?”

If that was a sin, then I had bigger problems. My dad and I had a long history of “sinning” by attending hockey games—let alone watching them on TV. Were we overindulging in America’s entertainment culture?

I have a complicated relationship with leisure and entertainment. On the one hand, I find relaxation and energy in my leisure time. So far as I can tell, viewing a hockey game makes for one relaxing evening. I’m sure you have your own favorite activity as well.

Sometimes the seasons determine how I’ll spend my evening. While hockey is my winter activity, in the summer I’ll be out tending to my vegetable garden or weeding around our flowers. Leisure like this can be a medicine that restores us. However, leisure, like medicine, can also be abused.

If I constantly need medicine, then I may either have a chronic condition that needs direct treatment or I’m dangerously addicted to medicine. I could take Aleve every day for my headaches, or I could address the causes of my sinus pressure by dusting our home in order to minimize my allergic reactions.

When I work too much or lose my focus on God’s peaceful presence, I can turn immediately to television shows or random websites for comfort or medicine. There is nothing wrong with watching a hockey game or reading a book, but my problems come when I wear myself out by working too much and then crashing in the evenings.

If my only ambition at the end of the day is to crash in the evening, then I’m relying too much on entertainment to medicate the pain caused by how I spend the majority of my day. Sometimes a hockey game or an hour in the garden is just what I need.

However, I also need to look at how work and leisure relate to one another. As someone who looks at a screen all day for work, should I always rely on a screen for my leisure? If I want to spend time in the garden, are there times when I’m avoiding responsibilities or relationships?

Some nights I should read scripture and refocus on what God may be saying to me. Other nights a novel may help me relax in the right way. Still other nights I should go out with my wife, take care of the laundry, or finally fix that broken latch on our trash can.

When I just want simple, low-input medicine all of the time, I’m either failing to pace myself during the day or I’m relying too much on the easy entertainment option. There are all kinds of medicines and cures. The TV is just one of many, and it may even be one of the worst.

I have no qualms with using a book, TV show, or garden project as a medicine that helps me unwind. I just want to make sure that I don’t live my life for the medicine.

The Greenhouse

Who or what do you rely on to “survive” the week?

Are there sources of stress that you need to entrust to God rather than a “medicine”?

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast for each day of the series.

In of 2009, we moved from our country home in Vermont to Connecticut where we encountered text messages for the first time. When I mentioned to friends that I’d never sent a text message before, they looked at me as if I was some kind of extinct dinosaur that managed to dodge the glaciers.

We didn’t have cell phone coverage around our town in Vermont until the last few months before we moved, so we never had any reason to get anything better than the basic calling plan.

A few years and maybe a hundred text messages later, we can not only send text messages, we can send pictures on our phone. This feels like a depressingly big deal to me. Better yet, when we needed to find a pet sitter for our house rabbits, we didn’t call the college student we’d been told about.

We texted her.

In a matter of minutes, maybe seconds, she texted back. I was dumbfounded. After doing a little bit of research, I found that most cell phone users in their twenties respond to texts within thirty minutes.

Texting can be a fantastic convenience when you just need to drop someone a quick note without getting into all of the small talk of a phone call. Texting may be God’s greatest gift to introverts. There’s no doubt that texting is also a fun way to have quick conversations with friends throughout the day.

However, we are also engaging in a wide variety of mini-conversations at once. Whereas the telephone used to stay home, attached to the wall, we’re talking to people all of the time—even more so when you toss texting into the mix.

Without questioning the benefits, how does texting change the ways we communicate with one another?

Pressure to Respond

We all have different lifestyles and demands on our time, and text messages may be a welcome distraction sometimes. However, when does the immediacy of texting create pressure to respond right away? Are there times when we need to focus on one task or one person and text messages interfere with family time or work?

Stress on Relationships

If we rely on text messages for the bulk of our communication with one another, are there times when a phone call or longer e-mail would be more appropriate? Perhaps a friend having a rough day could use a conversation to work through what’s going on, let alone to pray together.

I’m not saying that text messaging is necessarily flawed. Rather, I hope that we can think about the value it adds to our relationships as well as the times it falls short of a real conversation.

Christianity is a religion that thrives on the concept of incarnation—being fully present.

Whether we’re receiving one text message after another or considering how to best communicate with a friend, I find it helpful to think of how we can be fully present for others. Sometimes that means sending a text message, other times it means turning off the phone, and still other times it means calling or stopping by a friend’s house for a visit.

The Greenhouse

How do you feel when you receive text messages? Take some time to consider whether you have a healthy or unhealthy relationship to texts.

Ask God to help you be more fully present to at least one person today.

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast for each day of the series.

A few months after I received a new E-reader, my wife’s Mac broke, and I had to take it to the Apple Store. I feel like you can’t fight the Apple Store. You just need to deal with the fact that you will spend the next hour or two panting over the latest devices and MacBooks.

I didn’t go in without a plan. I had my new E-reader, and I thought I could at least distract myself from all of the sleek, desirable iPads and MacBooks around me.

The worst case scenario happened.

I pulled out my black, boxy E-reader and began to compare it to all of the slick iPads and iPhones lining the counters that crowds surged to touch. What was I doing with this horrible looking E-reader? How dare I violate the Mac sanctuary with my unclean product!

My appointment at the Genius Bar was held up for about a half hour, so I had plenty of time to compare my E-reader over and over again.

Just a few months ago I had been thrilled to receive my E-reader. Just that morning I had used it to read the Bible, hardly giving any thought to its design or interface. It was fine—really just fine.

What changed?

I feel like I pass through seasons of desire for new technology. I get swept up in the sales and promotions, the glittering reviews, and the urge to simply own something brand new. However, it doesn’t take long for that luster to wear off.

Oftentimes I feel emptier after buying new things, especially technology products. It’s like I’m filling a void in my life that is unplugged so that everything I add spills out.

I walked home that day through a large mall on a Saturday afternoon that swarmed with people rushing from one store to another with large, colorful bags. Shopping to a certain degree has become just another activity like knitting or gardening in our culture. To one degree or another, we all feel that tug to fill something within ourselves with what we buy.

Do we even know what it is that we’re trying to fill?

Jesus doesn’t offer us a system for dealing with our stuff, setting income limits, or assigning percentages for tithing, but he does provide a pretty simple way to handle our possessions: give away what you can. When we give things away, we are inadvertently creating space to be filled with more of God and the joy that comes from caring for others.

Giving away our possessions neutralizes their power over us, reminding us that we are not defined by what we own. We can take it or leave, but our identity is wrapped up in what God does in us, not in what we wrap ourselves in or use day to day.

The followers of Jesus came from a wide variety of financial backgrounds, and some of his followers clearly had wealth that they held onto and used—such as sharing their homes for church meetings. By advocating generosity, Jesus wanted to break the hold of wealth and materialism on his disciples long before the word “consumer” came into being in our affluent times.

Jesus knew that generosity fills us with the things that last and satisfy, while fighting off everything that seeks to trap and enslave us. The point isn’t that we can’t buy a new technology device. The point is that we’re so generous to others that new technology devices have no power over us, and we are free to only buy what we need, rather than buying everything we crave.

The Greenhouse

Take some time to meditate on what generosity to others could look like in your life. Keep in mind that we’re all in different seasons, so we need to hear what God desires for us right now.

As you pray about generosity today, ask God to reveal whether any of your possessions have an unhealthy hold on you.

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast for each day of the series.

I once heard that a Christian group had organized an “advance” for a weekend—which was their version of a retreat that would supposedly help attendees take strides forward in victory. I think that the intention of this group was certainly well-meaning. However, I wonder if this use of words hints at what we really associate with a spiritual “retreat.”

We think something like this: You only retreat if you’re losing.

For starters, most of us hate losing. In addition, we’re promised victory and success as followers of Jesus who rose from the dead and conquered sin. The victors do not retreat.

You don’t need to read a lot of history to know that even victorious armies needed to rest battle-weary troops. Even if victory is guaranteed, our day to day lives will take a toll on us. We may even suffer setbacks.

We don’t need retreats because some of us are particularly weak or inadequate. We need retreats because that is the only way anyone can win. Sometimes we literally need to step back and let God recharge us.

One practice I’ve been testing out during Lent is waking up earlier and then taking a break in the middle of my day—a mini-retreat. Since I’m self-employed, I’m often tempted to work for most of my day without even taking a meaningful lunch break, leaving myself burned out by the evening.

This small retreat has helped me rethink my day, establish a better pace, and wind myself down a bit more by the time dinner comes.

The big challenge for me is the thought of taking an actual long-term retreat for a weekend or, gasp, longer. I have this illusion that I’ll only advance if I keep pushing forward, if I keep working, if I keep the same spiritual routines, and if I maintain some measure of control over my life.

One of the more difficult passages in the Bible, for me at least, is the one about the Holy Spirit praying for me. I find it hard to wrap my mind around God’s Spirit making requests to God the Father on my behalf. It’s like God knows we can’t do it all on our own, and he’s already helping us before we ask.

Perhaps believing this will help us take more retreats—trusting that God is in the daily struggle of life with us. He’s here to support us when we can’t go on.

He knows we need to take breaks and that we need to fall back and retreat. He knows that a retreat from life can lead to an advance in him. He’s already advancing in our lives, praying on our behalf. All we need to do is join him.

The Greenhouse

Can you build a mini-retreat into your day? Do you have some time set aside already as a lunch break or other break? Ask God to show you how he can use that time to help you recharge.

Take some time to meditate on what it means for the Holy Spirit to pray for you. Are you willing to accept the Spirit’s prayers for your today?

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast for each day of the series.

A friend of ours tried growing plants from seed one year. He nurtured the seedlings under a grow light for weeks, thinning out the extras and keeping each pod moist. When it came time to finally plant them in the garden, he’d had enough.

It was time for his plants to make their own way in the world.

He left his tray of young plants outside to get acquainted with their new home. Within days all of his plants were dead.

Transitions for plants don’t have to be quite so dramatic.

Most gardeners know that young plants need a gradual introduction to the outdoors. They need to be taken inside after a few hours at first, and then can gradually build up their strength as they are exposed to more sun and greater fluctuation of temperature. Transitions are a make or break period that can mean the life or death of a plant.

We used to have two raspberry bushes. Now we only have one. We have one because I watched one die and the other wilt. Hoping to save our wilting raspberry bush, I looked up what raspberry bushes need in order to be healthy. As it turned out, I’d stuck our bushes in moist, densely packed soil—the exact opposite of what they need for health!

Stacking up a mound of dirt and setting up a trellis for the branches, I managed to dig out the struggling plant and stick it on a well-drained, lightly packed hill. Within a few weeks new growth emerged from the plant and we even picked a few berries as a sign of good things to come.

I can imagine that seedlings or withering plants won’t necessarily enjoy the transition process. Whether moving from indoor to outdoor or being dug up and transplanted to a new location, these can be unsettling and difficult events.

We don’t have any guarantee that things will be better. We only know they’ll be different. Sometimes a transition into a new place feels like we’ve lost something we loved. Sometimes it’s the most liberating feeling ever.

The one constant for me has been that God works in the midst of our transitions and can help us thrive, even if we feel like we’ve lost something in the process. Sometimes a difficult transition is the only way for us to find health. However, for all of the times that we feel uncertain, God is often described as a rock and as a reliable foundation in uprooted times.

I find that God is especially good at creating new opportunities to thrive after a season of transplanting. Much like that raspberry bush, there were plenty of times when I didn’t realize how much I’d been wilting and in need of a change. These are the kinds of things we only notice in hindsight. At the time, it always feels dramatic and difficult.

As you read the Bible during this season, keep in mind that while we know how all of the stories end, the characters in them going through tough transitions didn’t have a clue. They were led on transitions into new, unknown places with significant costs.

Pay particular attention to the way the disciples had to process their doubts and confusion over Jesus. They had left everything for this supposed Messiah. They had no idea where this Messiah would take them.

Perhaps one of the reasons why Jesus disrupted the lives of his disciples so dramatically is his simple message: find your life in me. We don’t cling to life by clinging to our circumstances or keeping things just as they are.

There may be transitions. There may not. Either way, Jesus wants to be the one place where we can always stay rooted.

The Greenhouse

Look back at a time of transition in your life. How has that experience shaped who you are today?

As you pray today, ask God to root you and ground you in his love. You may want to meditate on Ephesians 3 as part of your prayer time.

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast for each day of the series.

I’ve seen birds eating berries on a bush. I’d seen seeds inside of apples that hold the promise of future orchards. However, I’ve never seen an apple tree eating an apple.

While fruit certainly ensures the long term survival of a tree, bush, or plant, many of a fruit’s benefits go to parties other than the plant or tree bearing it.

When I think about God producing fruit in me, I often expect to see these benefits and to enjoy them for myself. To a certain degree, I do. And yet, there is a lot more going on than what I gain:

· When I am patient with others, they are the ones who truly benefit.

· When I am generous with others, they are the ones whose needs are met.

· When I am merciful to others, they experience God’s grace.

· When I love others, they feel God’s defining quality for themselves.

Keep in mind, a fruitful plant is a healthy plant. Therefore, when I am fruitful, I will be at peace and even joyful about the presence of God in my life. However, the benefits of going deeper with God extend beyond ourselves to the people around us. They can also enjoy the fruit of God’s power when it’s manifested in our lives.

One of the dangers of a prosperity Gospel mindset that focuses on God’s provisions for myself, is that I fail to see God’s bigger vision. God wants to bless other people through me and through you. He wants to change me: not just to make me a better person, not just to fulfill my destiny, and not just to make me happy.

God wants to change you and me into fruit bearing plants so that we can bless everyone around us.

The same principle holds whether you speak of Christians as the salt of the earth, the light of the world, or a flowing stream. Christians provide life and blessings to those around them.

As we take time to meditate on the ways that God can change us during Lent, perhaps it will help us to realize that the quality of our relationships with our friends and family will be touched most profoundly in the process. We certainly will feel better if we go deeper with God, but the benefits hardly stop with ourselves.

Producing fruit is a long, difficult process at the end of a tumultuous growing season. Plants have to dig down into soil, survive drenching rains, and then fight for life as they grow from spouts into sturdy plants. Fruitfulness is never easy.

However, the benefits of God in our lives—the fruit—can bring peace and joy to others in more ways than we can imagine.

Besides, if we simply indulged on our own fruit all of the time, we’d only get sick.

The Greenhouse

Ask God if there is one person in particular who you are being called to bless during Lent this year.

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast for each day of the series.

One year I decided that we needed four times the amount of lettuce that we had been growing. I eat a salad every day, and our house rabbits can’t get enough lettuce treats. Why not go for it?

I planted two long rows of lettuce. Some were spaced out perfectly, yielding huge heads of lettuce that kept me and the rabbits busy. However, I also planted some mescaline greens in rows that were really packed together. I couldn’t choose which ones to uproot and which to leave—I wanted all of them!

So I left the mescaline greens tightly packed in their rows. They stayed small and insubstantial. My salads were awash in floppy green lettuce leaves, lacking the pizzazz of mescaline because I didn’t give them enough space to grow.

Some days I feel like that mescaline, cramming too many things into my life and unable to do any of them all that well. In order to properly take root, plants need some space. A cluttered plant is a dead plant.

Jesus spoke of the Gospel taking root in otherwise good soil, but the worries and cares of this world choked out the Gospel before it could establish itself. Whether we are trying to do a lot of good things or we’re swarmed by competing priorities and desires, God needs space in our lives in order to help us grow and bear fruit.

I can feel this need for space in very literal ways in my daily life. When my desk or dining room table becomes overrun with piles of paper and sticky notes, I start to worry about what I’m forgetting. When I sit down to work, I start to flip through papers, wondering what I should do next.

How can I sit and pray if my desk and computer are littered with reminders of what I need to do each day?

I read an article once about taking the last 15 minutes of every work day to clear off your desk and to create your schedule for the next day. This provides a nice resolution to the day, a clean slate for the next morning, and a greater sense of calm about my priorities. Simply taking time to gather my bearings and to clear up my desk a little, left me far more relaxed at the end of the day.

Even five minutes of organizing and planning can make a huge difference in my day.

There was nothing bad about the piles of paper and notes on my desk, but too much of a good thing can make it hard for life to happen. When I clean up my life a little and figure out where work, family, rest, and prayer fit in, I’m able to let each part of my life grow simultaneously without letting one steal from the other.

This means that sometimes I have to remove activities that I would otherwise enjoy. However, if I want each area of my life to grow to complete health, I sometimes need to pull out a few things because we sometimes can’t fit everything into our lives.

The Greenhouse

Can you take five minutes to clear off one meaningful space in your home? A kitchen table or a desk? Does seeing it cleaned off change how you imagine using it?

Are you overwhelmed with too many good plants in your life? Are you fighting off too many weeds? Ask God to show you a healthy balance today so that he has enough space to go deeper into your life.

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast for each day of the series.

I didn’t start gardening because I love pruning tomato plants or figuring out the ideal lay out for our perennials.

Everything changed when I had my own lawn to mow.

I couldn’t dig up the chunks of grass fast enough. Every square foot of garden was one less bit of lawn to mow. When we looked into renting a home in Columbus, lawn size was always in the back of my mind. Once we moved into our home, I hauled a mountain of dirt to our back yard for raised bed gardens that cut the lawn in half.

Jesus said we need to love our enemies. That’s fine with me. I don’t think that applies to my attitude toward the lawn.

After tilling up our first garden a few years ago, I discovered that gardening has a dark side: weeds. For all of the joy I gained by turning our useless lawn into a productive patch of beauty and food, the weeds brought their own torments. Weeding is essentially mowing the lawn one blade of grass at a time.

Weeds choke out healthy plants and steal their nutrients. I couldn’t ignore weeds, but I also hated the hours of rooting around in the dirt for the “mythical” weed roots. I soon learned that weed prevention was preferable to weed pulling.

I learned through a hyperactive gardening expert that cardboard and wood chips can make for nice paths, but my rows of lettuce still suffered weed infestations amidst the straw I laid around them. I found the solution at a community garden plot.

One lady planted her lettuce in a group underneath her sunflowers. The sunflower provided shade during the heat of summer, while the packed lettuce fought off any weeds that dared to invade. She still had to weed a little at first, but soon the overwhelming numbers of lettuce prevented the weeds from ever returning.

Good plants can choke out the bad plants.

When we take that gardening lesson and apply it to the parable about the four kinds of soil and the message of the Kingdom, we have a fascinating alternative to the seeds that were choked out by weeds. The good seeds grow and essentially take the offensive against the weeds.

Pulling Weeds Isn’t Efficient

I don’t think Jesus intended his followers to spend their time pulling the “weeds” out of their lives. Weeding takes us away from cultivating the good plants that can feed us. While weeding is necessary for the short term, weed prevention is the best long term strategy in both gardens and in our spiritual lives.

Cultivating Healthy Plants to Fight Weeds

As we cultivate healthy spiritual practices such as meditating in silence, trusting our needs to God, and reading scripture daily, we’ll fertilize the fruit-bearing seeds of the Kingdom in our lives. As these practices help us grow and produce fruit, we’ll crowd out any space for sin.

When sin does sprout up in our lives, we can’t let it overshadow the good seeds that God has planted in us. We uproot them through confession, trusting in God’s power to restore us. A few weeds don’t ruin the value of everything else in the garden, but they can’t be left to flourish either.

Creating space for God’s Spirit in our lives helps God’s good things flourish so that we don’t have to spend all of our time weeding out every sin that pops up.

The Greenhouse

What’s one thing that most interferes with your prayer and scripture time? Can you remove it for one day?

What is one thing you can do to help yourself look forward to prayer? What if you walked to a place today that feels peaceful? What if you lit candles in a dark room? Would kneeling beside your bed help you focus better? Try something different out today for your prayer time.

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast for each day of the series.

On our wedding day, I did something strange. I assure you, I only did it once. However, the fact that I did it at all created such an impression that I’ll never forget it.

I stood in my in-laws foyer at the bottom of the steps, waiting for my bride-to-be to come down before the ceremony. We’re not superstitious, and we simply wanted to share a moment together before the whirlwind of our wedding day.

I didn’t have much on hand besides my camera. I wanted to capture the moment when I first saw my bride. I wanted to carry this memory with me for the rest of our time together.

As she stepped off the first step, I peered through the viewfinder and snapped a picture. In that instant, I asked myself, “What am I doing?”

I could have been fully present for that one moment, savoring the experience of seeing my wife and looking into her eyes. Instead she looked down on a black smudge across my face. After taking the picture I tossed the camera aside and vowed to enjoy that day, and many days after that, with her, being fully present in the moment.

A recent article in the New York Times shared a similar experience. The writer stood on the west coast, enjoying a beautiful sunset through the viewfinder on his iPhone. He suddenly realized that he’d been so focused on preserving some semblance of that moment, he was failing to fully enjoy the beauty of the full sunset before him.

While there’s nothing wrong with taking pictures to document fun events, online photo sharing has made it possible to track each day where our friends are hanging out, what they’re making for dinner, or what their kids just destroyed.

Sometimes the quest for perfect memories can interfere with being fully present in the moment. Perhaps we’re failing to fully see the people around us or the ways we’re interacting with one another.

Where Are You?

Some of the most holy moments happen to me while I’m out in nature, enjoying something beautiful such as a view from a mountain, the shore of a lake, or a sunset over a corn field. When I’m fumbling with my camera to capture every single moment, I’m interrupting the potential to meet God in the midst of the full experience.

In Search of Perfect Memories

I’ve read cooking blogs. I’ve seen their potatoes that come out of the oven all crispy and delicious. My potatoes never, ever look like that!

Nevertheless, I can still make edible food. It’s not like I need to reproduce the perfection created by others in order to enjoy the blessings of my own life. The trouble is that I want the ideal, the crispy potatoes.

I want to preserve the best parts of my life, and I want to imitate the perfect things I see all around me. Sometimes the reality of the moment can come across as a bummer if I give myself over to idealism.

This isn’t about disabling our cameras or unsubscribing from cooking blogs. I still love taking pictures of nature. That practice can be quite powerful in and of itself.

This is about being aware of ourselves in the moment, when we’re tempted to preserve it. Sometimes preserving a moment is simply part of the fun and can even take on its own artistic value. However, there may be other times when the only thing my family can see is that camera in my face. Sometimes the moment is too important to risk taking a picture of it.

The Greenhouse

What were the most important moments from the past 7 days? Were there ways you could have been more present?

Is there one habit or practice you have that may interfere with the quality of your daily interactions with others? How can you change it?

Ask God for wisdom so that you can bless and encourage one person today.

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast for each day of the series.

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast or visiting the podcast blog for each day of the series.

Today’s post is by Jeremy Slagle of Central Vineyard.

When we think of great artists, names like Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and others come to mind. But before they were recognized for the achievements in museums, they were painters employed by the church to create art. Let me say that again with emphasis: they were employed by the church to create art.

The church recognized that because God’s attribute of creativity is so important and because people are made in His image, it is essential for humans to create. It’s a part of who we are.

Children are creative from day one. Young children go through large quantities of crayons and paper, play-doh, and paste. They can’t get enough of it.

But something happens in our culture as children get older. By the time they reach middle school a vast majority no longer see themselves as creative. Many stop creating because they are afraid of what others will say about their art. Experts say that after 9th grade it’s nearly impossible to change a person’s mind about his/her creative side.

On the flip side, if you ever take an art class given through a local arts group or recreation center, you will notice a disproportionately large number of older folks. For most, it is because they are retired and they want to return to doing something they once loved to do but work and family got in the way, and they had to put it off.

Creativity Is Important to God

This, of course, is a major understatement. God cares so much for his creation that even when it turned its back on Him and decided to live for itself, He sacrificed his only son for it.

• Jesus came to earth as a carpenter’s son, learning a trade that allowed him to use his hands to work the wood that he once spoke into existence.

• In Genesis God used a craftsman named Noah to build an enormous ark which saved mankind and all of the animals.

• Moses rose to power as royal architect in Egypt before he lead his people out of slavery.

• In the Psalms we read the lyrics of a gifted writer named David as he writes songs of praise and defeat, betrayal and victory.

• King Solomon’s record of the building of the temple accounts the painstaking detail that was given by the best artists in the land as they dedicated years to building a physical building as a place of worship to the most high God.

The scriptures are filled with creative people who are called on to use their talents to further God’s plan on earth.

Being creative doesn’t mean it’s your profession or even your passion. There are creative people in all businesses and many have found it a way to connect with a part of themselves that has been dormant since they held a crayon in second grade.

Some do this with music, others with paint, but the overwhelming reason they do it is because the feel like they should. Not because they are forced to but because it brings them joy. It requires them to take time and get messy. For the believer it has an even deeper reason–to connect with the creator.

As Christians, we should see creativity as a gift: something we do to get in touch with God.

Drawing as meditation: Forget the audience

Use a sketchbook and block out any concerns about an audience. Explore where God wants to lead you. Take time to also write notes about what you are drawing. Take time to think about what you are drawing. Worship the creator and think about His design. Thank Him for giving you a new appreciation for his marvelous skills.

Involve the Family in Creativity

Creativity doesn’t have to be put on the top shelf until you’re an empty-nester. Make it a part of your routine and include your children in it by buying them a sketchbook and documenting their experiences with drawings and collages.

It’s never Too Late to be Creative–

Drawing is the most fundamental form of art. All you need is a pencil and paper and you’re on your way. Buy an unlined sketchbook and pick one thing a day to draw. Don’t worry about how it looks when you are done. It’s for your eyes only. Find groups within your community that teach drawing or plein air painting and get involved. The best way to do anything better is to practice and art is no different.

Calling for a new Renaissance

Visit a gallery show or artist group and ask them what inspires them to create. Take time to visit a museum, go to a concert, read a biography of an artist.

For Meditation:

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalm 19:1

“A Christian should use these arts to the glory of God, not just as tracts, mind you, but as things of beauty to the praise of God. An art work can be a doxology in itself.”

? Francis A. Schaeffer, Art & the Bible