Bright Beena

I don't see my almost-3-year-old niece, Karina, very often, but whenever I have the chance I try to teach her the Young Children's Catechism. She seems to have trouble with answering question #2. Just a few minutes ago, I was sitting with her browsing a blog and looking at beautiful pictures of fall foliage. She gasped, smiled and pointed, exclaiming, "Who made that?!". I answered, "God". She replied, "God made everything!", and then, to my brother, "CADE! GOD MADE THAT! GOD MADE THAT!!!". Oh, may God make her heart soft. :)

So, by the way (with regard to my previous post), supposing that creativity does have intrinsic value and should be developed, I need to decide whether it can. Can someone like me (who is considered uncreative) learn to be creative? Is there some sort of creative potential in all of us?

Creativity

The Mother Cook gave me a book to look through called The Tightwad Gazette. It's a collection of the insights and advice of an incredibly thrifty woman who has perfected the art over the last couple of decades. But the more I read through it, the more I became convinced that it is no coincidence that this woman (and a large percentage of other frugal women I know) is also very creative.

I, on the other hand, am not. She addressed this issue directly in an article about the impossibility of divorcing creativity and frugality. Creativity, she says, is just coming up with new ways to solve a problem - which is exactly what tightwads do. As much as her advice should have inspired me, I felt discouraged by the fact that I am not creative at all. What I was confronted with, though, was the argument that creativity can (and should) be learned.

With this on my mind, at church last Sunday our pastor, Mike Biggs, mentioned the story of Job. He described the many-chaptered rebuttal of God to Job staking His authoritative claim over the universe. God asks Job: "Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone - while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?" Part of His authority over creation is as its great Creator. And this is enough a part of His nature to point out to Job. He is the Creator, from Him comes creativity itself.

And I am made in His image. I also am a creative being. As part of having a remnant of the image of God as part of my nature, I am endowed with certain qualities that reflect Who God is. If justice, beauty and truth are to be held in high esteem since they are part of God's nature, surely creativity would also be included in that list. And if I see it as part of my duty to pursue things like justice and beauty, then I suppose I must also seek to develop and appreciate my own creativity.

"Nothing Chatters More Than An Empty Head"

It's so easy for me to get lost in a world of thoughts (for examples, see entire blog). :) Thoughts are, after all, important. The Bible teaches us how powerful they can be: "We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knoweldge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5); "'As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts'" (1 Chron. 28:9 from David); "Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise, and apply your mind to my knowledge" (Prov. 22:17). So I think God has blessed me to have this desire to think and analyze.

Downside #1 is that I just don't see things as clearly as other people. When I think and think and think about something, I don't tend to see the basic point of the matter and thus lose most of the meaning. That can be really frustrating.

Downside #2 (and definitely worse) is that I can completely neglect reality. Sigh...how often do I get more excited about the abstract ideas of, say, postmillenial promises when I cannot even get as excited about loving my brethren? I can spend hours talking about selfishness and the different ways it's manifested in my life, examples of it from the Bible, philosophies of its effects and how to deal with it, etc., etc. But after all that talking, I walk away and, at the end of the day, realize that I've done less repenting than talking; and repenting is what all that talking should have been aimed at in the first place!

I love how Derek Webb has been humble and brave enough to talk about these sorts of taboo and uncomfortable issues. We need to repent. But, more importantly, I need to repent.

L'Envoi

When earth's last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colors have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it - lie down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall set us to work anew!

And those that were good will be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets' hair;
They shall find real saints to draw from - Magladelene, Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!

And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame;
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are!
Rudyard Kipling

Sanctification of the Nations

Moses says:
See, the LORD your God has placed the land before you; go up, take possession, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you. Do not fear or be dismayed... Yet you were not willing to go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God; and you grumbled in your tents and said, 'Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us.' Then I said to you, 'Do not be shocked, nor fear them. The LORD your God who goes before you will Himself fight on your behalf, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, just as a man carries his son, in all the way which you have walked until you came to this place.' But for all this, you did not trust the LORD your God, who goes before you on your way, to seek out a place for you to encamp, in fire by night and cloud by day, to show you the way in which you should go. Deuteronomy 1

I've always thought that the Israelites' lack of faith was strange and unexplainable. I've never understood how it was possible for these people, having been told they were the chosen ones of God and having seen His wonders in Egypt and the wilderness, could ever have rebelled and shown such an audacious lack of faith in what God could do. This was the God Whom they watched part the waters of the sea and send manna out of the sky to feed them. Yet, it seems with every test of faith they had no faith. Why?

I've heard someone say that these Israelites were completely ignorant of almost all the attributes of God; that, in a sense, God had to teach them from scratch everything He wanted them to know about Himself. They lacked, for example, any understanding of monotheism, miracles, faith, spiritual fidelity, etc. So, this explanation would say, if their faith seems to have been very immature and weak that's because it was. This doesn't seem to apply exclusively to God's people either. Many or most ancient cultures had similar worldviews.

I wonder if it's possible that as God has sanctified His Church, much of the world has also been sanctified. I see a general acceptance of Truth in cultures today, especially in America, that is much more mature than, say, three thousand years ago. For example, many or most (or, at least more) work within a monotheistic framework, accept that belief is faith and that faith must lead to action, believe in Good and Bad, believe in the need to uphold some objective standard to be deemed acceptable before whatever deity they are aiming to please, etc. We, as mankind, just seem to have a better understanding of God built into our cultures and to be more ripe for faith.

In addition, though, I wonder if one could make the case that the collective faith of the Church is now stronger and purer than in earlier history. I know that heresy is running rampant and that there are tons of false prophets running around and that Christians seem to be irrelevant and bla bla bla. But I find it amazing that most Christians would claim that salvation comes by grace through faith because of the saving work of the Son of God, Who is Jesus Christ. (I've found that, after studying more and more history, those basic doctrines weren't as common as I'd thought.)

I may be way off, but my impression is that history shows how God's truth has taken root more and more in mankind. Could this possibly be an example of God's victory in this world over Satan and of mankind's progressive sanctification?

It's probably more likely that I'm just misinformed and optimistic to a fault. Either way, let me know. :)

The Great Conversation

After my last post, I realized just what my intentions were when I decided to start blogging. I'm analytical by nature, so I'm constantly thinking. (Now, that doesn't give you any kind of indication as to the quality or depth of my thoughts, but it is constant nonetheless.) Having a blog has been great because, to a certain extent, I'm able to filter, sort and organize these thoughts to see just what I come up with.

When I wrote my last entry, however, I realized just how valuable it would be to engage others. I didn't want my thoughts to end with me; I wanted and needed others to participate and to take me farther. (And not only that, adding others to the mix always makes for a more interesting time. ;) )

So, here's my invitation (plea?). Comment away!