The Joy of Creating
Friday, July 14, 2023
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Rev. 4:11.
My husband says he's never going to get old. You might chuckle as you note that the "salt and pepper" of his once dark hair has blended into silver. "Laugh," he'll say, flexing a set of muscles that in his fifty-ninth year threaten to rival those of the Incredible Hulk. (I exaggerate a little!)
"I've been watching people," he'll say, "and when they hit their 50s, they must let their bodies go to mush. By the time they retire, they're old and flabby and have no strength for anything."
So he works out, faithfully, diligently—exercise, weight-lifting, watching his diet. But where he works sometimes the hardest, where he feels the most intense pains of disappointment and the keenest pleasures of achievement, is not with his weight machine but with his wood-turning lathe. There is where he takes dull, rough wood and with care and patience creates from it a thing of beauty.
Though our living room may seem cluttered with varied vessels of his creating, I see him eager to tell anyone who enters there the story of each piece. And each piece does have a story: a new tool, a different wood, a reluctant finish. I watch his animation as he talks. There is something wonderful and pleasing and powerful and health-enhancing in the act of creating with one's hands and mind.
Knowing our simple human pleasures in creative ventures, how they quicken the mind and energize the spirit, I can only imagine how God delights in His creations. Indeed, each has a story.
Health is more than working the body, proper nutrition, and living long. Ultimately, health is quality of life. God created us for His pleasure, and it's using that God-given gift of creativity that can bring the crowning glow of joyful health to one's face.
"Lord, make me creative. Help me not to look at life as all duty and drudgery, but teach me to catch a glimpse of the Divine and to see in each person's life the potential there. Whether working in the media of art or with human 'clay,' may I see the pattern that will glorify You."
When did you last give yourself the time and pleasure to create something?
My husband says he's never going to get old. You might chuckle as you note that the "salt and pepper" of his once dark hair has blended into silver. "Laugh," he'll say, flexing a set of muscles that in his fifty-ninth year threaten to rival those of the Incredible Hulk. (I exaggerate a little!)
"I've been watching people," he'll say, "and when they hit their 50s, they must let their bodies go to mush. By the time they retire, they're old and flabby and have no strength for anything."
So he works out, faithfully, diligently—exercise, weight-lifting, watching his diet. But where he works sometimes the hardest, where he feels the most intense pains of disappointment and the keenest pleasures of achievement, is not with his weight machine but with his wood-turning lathe. There is where he takes dull, rough wood and with care and patience creates from it a thing of beauty.
Though our living room may seem cluttered with varied vessels of his creating, I see him eager to tell anyone who enters there the story of each piece. And each piece does have a story: a new tool, a different wood, a reluctant finish. I watch his animation as he talks. There is something wonderful and pleasing and powerful and health-enhancing in the act of creating with one's hands and mind.
Knowing our simple human pleasures in creative ventures, how they quicken the mind and energize the spirit, I can only imagine how God delights in His creations. Indeed, each has a story.
Health is more than working the body, proper nutrition, and living long. Ultimately, health is quality of life. God created us for His pleasure, and it's using that God-given gift of creativity that can bring the crowning glow of joyful health to one's face.
"Lord, make me creative. Help me not to look at life as all duty and drudgery, but teach me to catch a glimpse of the Divine and to see in each person's life the potential there. Whether working in the media of art or with human 'clay,' may I see the pattern that will glorify You."
When did you last give yourself the time and pleasure to create something?
Used by permission of Health Ministries, North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists.
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