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“We will never create anything more powerful or significant than our lives.”

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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