Artists and creatives sometimes think what they do has nothing to do with God or religion. Even many Christian creatives think this. I used to.
But the gospel changed the way I view creativity.
Creativity Is Worship
God created the universe and everything in it (the most creative act of all) to show his glory. When we create, we’re displaying his glory. We’re worshiping God through the talents he gave us.
A good portion of the Bible is poetry and song, and the rest tells his story in creative, diverse ways. His Word is a story, a song, a poem. It’s art.
Our art isn’t merely something to provide an escape from reality or a way to express emotions. Our art is for God’s glory.
You could attempt to create for your own glory, but what would you get from that? Temporary gratification that disappears as you hunger and thirst for more achievements and applause. Never quenched. Never satisfied.
But if we create for the glory of God—as we were made to do—we find lasting satisfaction. One of the most intimate and beautiful ways to worship God is by creating something beautiful that showcases his glory.
Yes, You Are Creative
Each of us is the result of God’s great and perfect creativity. We are brushstrokes of paint on our Artist’s great canvas.
Even if you don’t think you’re a creative person, you were made in the image of the supremely creative God. As his image-bearers, we are creative. All of us. Let me prove it to you.
One of the most intimate and beautiful ways to worship God is by creating something beautiful that showcases his glory.
My 16-year-old sister would argue she isn’t creative, but she is. She sees God’s beautiful world and draws it with her own hand. She works long hours, turning lines into shapes and colors into pictures. She sits at the piano and her hands meet the ivory, making it sing the most magnificent melody. She sings songs like our mother, and her smile itself tells a story. My sister is creative.
My 7-year-old brother is creative. He can’t sit still long enough to draw or color, like most children love to do. But his mind runs faster than anyone can keep up with. He plays as a child with a story to tell. Maybe someday he’ll write it down—or maybe he’s meant to tell his stories another way. My brother is creative.
Even my 13-year-old sister is creative. She may be young, but she holds a passionate fire within her bones. With that flame, I know she’ll find a way to light souls on fire one way or another. She creates stories in her mind as I do, with an endless imagination. My littlest sister is creative.
My mother is creative. I’ve listened to her sing since before I could speak. Her voice is a gift she uses to sing, to speak, to teach. She makes our house into a home, with love and unity. The loving, gentle work of a mother and a wife is also art. She brought three children into this world. If that’s not a creative act, what is? My mother is creative.
My father is creative. He works harder than any man I’ve ever known. Work can be art. He helps and provides for others with grace, and teaches and leads with humility and wisdom. He protects and shepherds, just as any good father and husband is meant to do. His love is deep and his strength is found in the Lord who created him. Whether he’s leading our family as a father and husband or leading a church as an elder, he’s an artist. My father is creative.
We Can’t Be Creative Apart from God
Without God, I have no words to write. Without God, the artist has no inspiration. The dancer has no rhythm. The singer has no voice. We cannot create something from nothing, as our God is able to do. Our creativity comes from him and him alone.
It may seem like we can create on our own, that our inventive ideas stem from personal experiences or merely from observations of our world. But where do all these things come from? Are our experiences simply random strings of events that happen to make their way into our lives? Where does nature get its beauty? Where do human emotions get their power? Surely, it can’t be random. It can’t be an accident.
We cannot create something from nothing, as our God is able to do. Our creativity comes from him and him alone.
I used to think my creations were my own. All I had to do was dig within my imagination and pull out beautiful things from the depths of my own mind. I gave no thought to where my ideas came from.
But then I realized that when I create, I’m making something inspired by the beauty of the original creation of our world that God brought into existence at the beginning of time.
Our art reflects the beauty he created first. Our stories are fragments of the greater story he wrote before time began. Our desire to create beautiful things is a response to living in God’s beautiful creation and bearing his creative image.
It was so freeing to realize my creative ideas aren’t my own. It’s a great burden for artists to think that what they create must be original and only something they could say. When I humbly acknowledge my creative output is always just a remix of God’s original creation, done in response to his forming me to bear his creative image, I find greater freedom and satisfaction. I thank God for every idea he allows me to have and for every word he allows me to write.
The gospel changes everything. Especially art.
The Gospel Coalition