Creation

Our three grandsons live next door to us.

Each afternoon the boys drop in, check out our fridge and pantry, then pull out the Craft Box and get down to some serious creating…. all the while chatting away, filling me in on their day. I love these times.

Zion is 7yrs old and lately has been making superhero characters. He draws them and colours them, and cuts them out. Then he and his two younger brothers tear around the house and yard playing out imaginary dramas with these characters.

I’ve always been fascinated by a child’s insatiable drive to create. Whether it be drawing superhero figures, building Lego structures, solving puzzles on their ipads, dancing, playing dress-ups, telling stories… dreaming and creating is in their DNA. It’s the way Creator God designed them – in His own image. We are all born with the hunger to create, a drive to craft something new, something unique.

I was reflecting on all this last week when I was hit with this thought:

If God is Creator, if creating is intrinsic to his immutable nature, then he must be creating continually. God never stops creating.

Now, I know you know that.

I’ve always known that.

But this was one of those revelation moments for me.

And it was startling.

What is God creating today? What did He create yesterday? Another plant species? Another universe? There must be an infinite amount of things that God has been creating since … um … well, throughout all of his eternal existence. God has never stopped creating.

It’s impossible for my finite mind to fully comprehend this fact. Who knows what remarkable creations exist outside our universe, or within it for that matter, that we just cannot know about.

But one thing I have come to understand is this - that one of the ways God chooses to create is through people. This is why He created us in His own image – so we could partner with Him in the process of His creating.

We are conduits. But not in an impersonal way, rather God delights to see this new creation of His with my spin on it. My personality, my experiences, my passions, my choices - it’s a partnership. God sharing Himself with me. Me sharing Him with the world. I clearly remember being overawed by this fact throughout my first pregnancy - each day realizing that God’s act of creating human life was taking place within me, and with my assistance. How astounding!

Sometimes we tend to limit our understanding of ‘creative’ people to the painters and sculptors, web designers, musicians, writers and dancers of this world. But if we look more closely we’ll find creativity driving the scientist to discover that new vaccine, the detective to solve that crime, the company manager to build that business, and the mother to turn that house into a home. Whoever we are, God will use our personality, our passions, our talents and our choices to express His creative nature through us.

God has assimilated His creative self into us. What a privilege. What an inspiration to locate what He is up to in us today, so that we can capture it and proclaim it to the world around us. Think about that for a moment - God releasing His creative passion through me today – with my unique spin on it!

Zion, self portrait