The World Needs You.
Creatives, Writers, Artists, and Friends, the world needs you. Your first response may be “Yeah, right, then where’s all the money?” You may not all think this way, but how often does the monetary draw surpass the importance of the artistic offering? Furthermore, is there a spiritual search to consider what to even create and why?
Here are a few simple questions to ponder about your gifts:
- How did you acquire your artist talent in the first place?
- Where did you receive the desire to write?
- How did you learn to sing, play your instrument, or write music with such passion?
WERE YOU BORN WITH THOSE TALENTS?
You may have studied and developed these gifts, but they are gentle gifts that God was very excited to place inside of you.
For You shaped me, inside and out.
You knitted me together in my mother’s womb long before I took my first breath.
14 I will offer You my grateful heart, for I am Your unique creation, filled with wonder and awe.
Psalm 139 13-14a Voice
So Easy To Forget
God placed wonders inside each and every one of us. These gifts are a reflection of His deep love for His Creation. They express how He has called us to engage with Him to share that Love. As we embrace this knowledge into our creativity and lives, we can express that love, those gifts, and by extension, the Giver, to the world. The ability to see those things in our lives and art are why the world needs you and what you create.
Sadly, in times of chaos, it becomes far too easy to get caught up in what the world offers. We reflect the world and not God, so we forget the Why of our creativity. A way to keep on course is to continue to seek God’s intent and Wisdom. Input affects output.
Wisdom will multiply your days
and add years to your life.
12 If you become wise, you will be the one to benefit.
If you scorn wisdom, you will be the one to suffer.
Proverbs 9:11-12 NLT
Why the talk on wisdom?
The World Needs You.
The artist, when giving her craft to the CREATOR and giving herself time to spend in His presence, will make wise choices with gift and life. She has laid her art down, as a knight lays his sword before the king, and says, “I am yours. How might I serve you?” Our connection goes deeper because our King receives our gift and will then share His Heart with us.
Brennan Manning’s book, Ruthless Trust, has a great chapter dealing with the question of why the world needs you and what you create, entitled “Artists, Mystics, and Clowns.” Are you aware of the unique way creatives can express TRUTH, JOY, PAIN, EXCITEMENT, DEPTH, and FEELINGS? Your genre can take these words and create in a manner that will reach out to touch the soul of the receiver. Imagine your poem, story, photo, or painting when one hand is connected to receive what God is speaking and the other is sharing what is received, making the art a conduit of Love.
This conduit of LOVE does not take the place of Salvation. This creative conduit is a tool where God can share His Voice and His Heart. This is how the world needs you and what you create.
Discovering Steps to Go Forward
To go forward in this adventure means spending time with God in silence and solitude. It means creating space. It means asking questions and then WAITING for answers on how to share.
Makers and Mystics end their podcasts with the phrase “The world needs your art.” Discovering THE ART God placed inside you, and then joining with Him to become that wonder through your genre and your life will allow you to: