Creating or Consuming

Over the last few years, God has been slowly awakening me to my own creativity. It is hard for me to think of myself as a creative person. When I think of a creative person, I think of a great painters like Caravaggio, Cassat, or Monet. I think of poets and sculptors, great men and women.

Somewhere along the line, I believed the lie that creativity was for the professionals. "Our part is to appreciate. Theirs is to create." 

My children have been a big part of this renewal of my creative side. They create all the time. Lego. Songs. Dances. Paintings. They are not inhibited. They have not been told that they shouldn't create, or that their creations don't measure up. So, they create freely and expressively.

They create because we were all made to create. When we create, we image forth a part of the very nature of God. When we create, we participate in, and express, His creative work. He is the Creator and we are creators. 

I feel like there are cultural forces that work to turn me into a consumer rather than a creator. It takes virtually no effort to turn on the TV, or click through the web. I can read, watch, and consume the creativity of others so easily. It takes effort and work to create. But there is something deeper; something more nefarious. 

It is easier and safer for me to consume the creations of others than to risk creating something myself and putting it into the world to be critiqued and ridiculed by an increasingly caustic and cynical culture. We delight in judging and mocking the creations of others. We have art critics, film critics, and music critics. We have fashion police who professionally mock even the simple creativity of clothing choices. We have elevated criticism to an art form...an art that actually discourages art. 

I am reminded of the words of Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

I choose to embrace and express the creativity that God has given me. To rise above and expend the effort. To push down the fear of mockery and to put myself into my writing, my art. 

I choose to contribute...to create! 

What's the point?

This life is not the most comfortable, is it? Sometimes it is hard work just living! Sometimes it feels like life is a random mix of issues and experiences. It’s not that I’m complaining. I’m just reflecting on life under the sun. What do we gain from our work, from our sacrifice? What does the worker gain from his toil?

In Ecclesiastes 3, Solomon asks it this way:

What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.

This passage comes immediately after the most quoted section of Ecclesiastes, where Solomon lists all the various seasons of life and activities under heaven. As he ponders all the things that come into our lives, some delightful, some painful and everything in between, he comes to the question of gain. He is essentially asking, “What do we get out of all this? What is the point?”

As he ruminates, he recognizes the sovereignty of God. He points out the God shaped hole in our hearts and the limitations of our understanding. He says that if this world is all there is, the best we can hope for is to eat, drink, and enjoy our work. Even the ability to enjoy our work is a gift from God. But Solomon pushes deeper into the mystery. There must be more!

He then returns to the mystery of God’s implacable sovereignty. We hear echoes of Psalm 115:3 as Solomon extols God and irresistible and unchangeable will. But the why question remains. Why does God do these things? Why does He fill our lives with pain as well as pleasure? Why is their war as well as peace, hate as well as love, weeping as well as laughter?

The key to understanding this passage is the very last sentence. “God does it so that men will revere him.”

Reverence is the only right response of a creature before their Creator. Therefore, God’s goal in all that He does under the sun is to restore the right relationship between us and Him. All the seasons and experiences of our life are a gift from Him to realign our hearts with His. God is freely and creatively doing whatever is best for us, whatever will form us more completely into the likeness of His Son. God measures out, into our lives, exactly what we need to renew our perspective and draw us into right relationship with Him.

What do we gain from our toil?  What is the pay off for slogging through the peaks and valleys of life? We gain an ever deepening relationship with God. We gain God Himself.

God's Terrible Inefficiency

I realized again today how much my perspective is shaped by who I am. I am driven by efficiency and productivity. I am always asking how to improve something or how to derive more from less, how to work smarter not harder. This drive is partially a result of my basic personality type, but has been continuously reinforced by my culture and education.

Today I was bemoaning a particular ineffeciency.  I was telling my wife that the return on my investment in a particular project was inadequate. I was arguing against doing something like it again. She listened to my rant patiently then gently asked a question, "Did you do what God asked you to do?"

"Yes!" I answered, "I did, but God is so terribly inefficient!" Suddenly I realized that Jesus had really mishandled his ministry, had botched his opportunity to make the kind of big impact that he could have made. First, there is a question of timing. He was born in a time and place where his voice could not be heard globally. Certainly, it would have made more sense for him to be born now with ubiquitous global media available to spread his message and broadcast his miracles. There was no recording equipment, no TV, no radio, no internet. He could reach more people in one day with a webpage and a twitter account than he could in 33 years of wandering around preaching to people in person back then. What was He thinking?!

Second, there is a question of social and economic clout. Even if we grant that it was a good idea to be born then, He should have picked a better situation for himself. He was born into a poor peasant family in a backwards province far from the centres of power. He made no effort to use the established systems of influence in government or religious circles. Instead, he recruited a bunch of misfit hicks to follow him around, and wasted his time blessing children and even going so far as to tell people NOT to tell others about what he had done for them. Certainly the lessons of guerilla marketing and viral marketing were lost on him. Again, I have to ask myself, What was He thinking?!

I could totally have done a better job. I could really have helped Jesus to be more efficient and productive. Jesus needed a strategic plan and a marketing team. (Perhaps even a glossy brochure.) He wasted so much of his time talking to people like the woman at the well, or the woman caught in adultery. He should have been focusing on those with more clout. He should have spent more time networking and developing contacts with the decision makers, the influential people. He could have really accomplished so much more! When he died, even the few followers he had were scattered. All power in heaven and earth had been entrusted to him! He used this power to wash feet?! What was He thinking?

As I allowed this train of thinking to flow from my unconscious to my conscious thoughts, it became so clear. God's economy is simply not mine. He chooses to work in ways that appear to be terribly inefficient, and I find that personally frustrating. Often, it seems like He is wasting my time and energy. I want to improve on His plan.

But there is a freedom that comes from seeking to know and do His will. If I choose to live in light of His actual presence and sovereignty, I can actually relax. When I release my imaginary brillance, the fiction of my control, I can find rest for my soul. Isn't this where Job ends up. He wrestles with God (and God commends Him for his honest arguing) but the answer was not what Job expected. God didn't answer the specifics of Job's questions, instead He offered Himself to Job. He reminded Job of His true nature and character. He showed Job His greatness and Job felt appropriately small before Him. Job repented and found rest for His soul.

I am after the peace that surpasses all understanding. It is interesting that prayer is the doorway to this peace. In prayer we acknowledge our smallness and dependency. We come to God and lay our requests before him with a heart of gratitude then the peace of Christ guards our hearts and our minds. We can find our rest in Him and let Him do what really is best. Only He knows what is really best, only He knows the end from the beginning. So, the terrible inefficiency serves a perfect purpose, but only He is capable of working it all together for the good, for my good and the good of His Kingdom.