A thought by Erwin Raphael McManus, (2014-02-25) from his
book, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art (p. 13). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
We were created by God to love Him and others. Now we were created in the image of God but
because of the Fall that image has been marred. And the world constantly does what it can to
continually destroy that image. Now God
is creative and within us He has also made us creative. But society does what it can to make us
believe that we are not creative.
Erwin says, “We don’t have to convince children that they are
creative; all we have to do is let them do what comes naturally. We never have
to give a four-year-old permission to color outside the lines or to not follow
the rules or to simply draw on the page what they see in their imagination. Yet
somewhere along the way, this gets restructured. We become convinced that only those
who are drawing inside the lines are doing it right, that the rules are more
important than anything else, that we can’t possibly allow our unfiltered
imagination to be reflected in reality. Creativity is replaced with conformity;
originality is replaced with standardization.”
Now of course, rebellion is not acceptable but for many
questioning is unacceptable. Just get in
life and do what everyone else is doing.
Notice that Jesus creatively healed people in many different way and He
also did it many times on the Sabbath.
And that really got to the religious leaders of His day. The fact that He healed people and even raised
someone from the dead showed that He would go against the rules of nature. They said it shouldn’t be done and couldn’t
be done but He did it.
Erwin says, “We are like children with nuclear fusion in our
hands— never fully grasping our potential for good and for destruction. It’s
easier to control people if we convince them that they are inherently
uncreative— everyone simply conforms and cooperates. If we want to create a
better world, we had better start to unleash the creative potential inside each
person to create all that is good and beautiful and true.”
Jesus said, "Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this
world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure
out what God’s will is—what is good and pleasing and mature.” [Romans 12:2
(CEB)]. Let us grasp the reality of
who we are in God’s image and create the life that He has created us to
be.
Why not start today?
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