Dear Creator || Creating for the Future Kingdom

This post is for the creator:

For the writer with words tingling in her fingers, waiting to be let free. For the musician as songs leap into his head, and he can't wait to release them. For the filmmaker, artist, actor, designer.

But it's for every. single. person. creating beauty:

For the moms cooking one more meal, changing one more diaper. For the gardener sinking his hands into fertile soil. For the one who cleans, who does computer work, who finishes the semester's last assignment, who talks with a stranger.

You're a creator too.

I unroll a new book project.

It's daunting. (Slightly) terrifying. I don't know where to start, where to end, what comes in the middle. There's twisting caverns, mountain peeks told to contain never-before-seen creatures, children who play under the shadows of danger. And I ready my fingers to write it all.

So I sit. Inhale deep. And prepare to write that "once upon a time", trusting Jesus for the rest.

But creating doesn't only start there. It happened yesterday as I tuned a guitar, prepared it for music. And it happened today as I spoke a prayer on the road, rain-soaked green on all sides around me. Even now, scribbling these words and praying God blesses them with purpose.

And I believe every person is a creator.

You were made to create beauty. To take something in this world and make it better, make something new, make something of purpose. You're longing for Eden, that beauty again.

Because there is beauty, reminders of the time man walked and talked with God, there's that beauty still in this world. Like the moment your story comes together and you want to hug anyone in sight. Or when your toddler throws her arms around you with that huge smile. Or when a plant peeks through soil for the first time.

Beauty like Eden, but there's another word too:

Hope.

Hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.

- Hebrews 3:6

If you were called to create something, do it. Be confident in what God has called you to do. He doesn't need you, your talent, your abilities, but He delights to use you and know you and call you His own!

Rejoice through your pen sweeping on paper. Through the way trees shiver in rainstorms. Through cooking another meal, folding laundry, laying in the darkness as you try to sleep.

Hope.

Let everything you do point to that hope, the hope of a forever with Jesus. Of a future Kingdom where all will be made new. Of wholeness, where sickness is gone, anxiety destroyed, and Jesus is King.

God will return to earth to make all things new: that's our Hope!

We create to make something extravagant - like what we lost in Eden. But hope isn't looking back at the beauty lost but looking forward to the beauty coming in the New Earth; that's why we create.

This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast...

- Hebrews 6:19 

 

And the God of that hope is a Creator God. He designed that hope: the way the oceans tinge with foamy waves. He directs birds to sing in melodic order as the world awakens. And you're made in His image! How could you help but copy Him, grow restless with that urge to awaken emotion and beauty and order in this world around you?

Lift your head, friend. Pause and see the color in the clouds. Worship as the birds sing and trees sway. Smell the air and let it be part of a praise that reflects in your everyday life.

And create.

Let Him come back to make this earth new and find you faithfully waiting, faithfully creating. Your words have purpose! Everything you do for Him can change the world!

Create for the Kingdom Hope.

And let's share below! What's your current WIP? What's a beauty you love to create?

I'll slip away to create right here in my home, rainstorm ready to hit yet with a tinge of pale peach on the horizon, and I smell popcorn and dream of our forever hope with Jesus.

And may we join one of my favorite characters from The Torch Keepers as we create something lovely and let every part of life be transformed into worship!

Keys stained different shades of gold and brown all lined up at the front of the instrument. Behind them, I could see through the glass frame and into the deeper part of the instrument where dark strings stretched out in all different sizes. When the keys were pushed, the strings in the back wiggled like worms! Am-Othniel leaned his ear near the last string, played it several times, and then stepped back with a grin. I giggled.

He rubbed his hand across the keys. "This is my favorite instrument, the laude-chorda. It's small, but when I play it the music will sing louder than every other sound. It's like standing by a door when the wind blows up a fierce sandstorm. It's all you can hear--music."

//excerpt from The Torch Keepers

 

For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise:

"For yet a little while,

And He who is coming will come."

- Hebrews 10:36-37

~♥~

 

Don't Forget || Worship in Every Moment

Don't forget ____.

It's your turn; I wonder what you'd fill in the blank. What would you write, one key element that keeps you going every day and gives you a reason to get out of bed every morning? 

The Lord gives us different stories, and that's beautiful! It's one reason I write, I dream, but it also makes me wonder. If we sat for coffee and we shared one God-thing, what would it be?

Don't forget ____.

Write it down. Tuck it away somewhere (put it in the comments, and I'd be glad to read it!). And then I'll share mine too.

Maybe you can grab your coffee (extra cream in mine, please) and join me. Here's the God-thing He keeps telling me to remember. It's changing the way I see life, and it can change you too.

Every moment in life is worship.

... but it's your decision to make.

If you're like me, a day consists of a million things on your mind and to-do list, and few of them get done. *giggles*  Sometimes I categorize days, wake up with my agenda, later write in my nightly journal about all I got done.

(horray - you get a peek into my personal schedule!)

• Mondays: dusting, cooking, pickleball with the family.
• Wednesdays: working, checking out customers, chats with strangers.
• Fridays: mowing, gardening, resting in the sunshine.

But life isn't about those. *points up* Maybe it's not about what I do at all but how, why I live it.

Last week, I was walking in a creek. Numb toes, rocks pebbly and scattered under the edges of wild honeysuckles of pink and white that I'd never seen before. I walked, tried to jump across the water, got soaked, stubbled bare toes against hard rocks.

But I stopped, paused, and let my mind take a picture.

A picture of spring-green trees and water forking three ways. Of a place away from city noises and traffic and schedules.

I saw a place God is.

He's there, God of the quiet moss and sandy shores. He's a God of peace and rest, of solitude and nature.

There, the world worshipped. And I joined it.

Logs bowed their heads before their Creator. Salamanders hid in crags and lived the life He set before them. Birds sang His praises. Water danced at His bidding.

And there were us. A few adults, a lot of kids, and we walked in a line back up the hill, exhausted and hot. Yet we weren't just people. We were beings created in His holy image. We were souls righteous in His sight that would live forever in His Kingdom. We laughed and ate and played, and it was worship somehow. It reminds me of the New Earth. 

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
And come to Zion with singing,
With everlasting joy on their heads.
They shall obtain joy and gladness,
And sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

 - Isaiah 35:10

Today, here I sit, wind whipping my ponytail and flustering the deep-violet petunias on our front porch to make their perfume fly around me. A cow calls, I remember that I need to start dinner, and I forget again because I watch a trail of ants that somehow keep finding our hummingbird feeder. But I sit, embrace this moment because this too is worship.

That worship drew my eyes more to Jesus and less to me. It breaks self to make room for joy to bubble through. And I sing in the melody another author wrote so well,

Over the gateway of Self is a sign that says, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter." It is a hellish, helpless place. Die to self. Live to God. Let your words and music be more beautiful by their death int he soil of worship, that the husk of your own imperfection might fall away and germinate into some bright, eternal song only God could have written.

- Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson 

Worship: Every single moment. The God of shalom at the creekside is the same God as you finish finals and prepare for graduation and summer. The God beside you as you lay in bed at night is the same God who is with you at work, when you're stressed, when you praise Him with songs on Sunday mornings.

God is. He is. And that doesn't change.

Joy doesn't come from fulfilling your to-do list. It comes from a different perspective (Romans 12:2). A different goal in life. It starts with worship, and it's a gift from God. That's what changes the world:

Like David. And Ruth. Jesus.

Their lives were humble worship to the Father.

So Friend, don't forget:

Life is a continual worship.

I challenge you to stop, take a moment, and let your mind remember. Where you are at this single moment, this can be worship. Where you are in three hours can be worship too. Even if it's hard.

Creation is continually singing praise. Every star shining, every windy breeze, it's declaring that He is God and there is none like Him!

Yet He desires you. Me. He wants our hearts, to love and be loved, to be intimate with us. He wants us, created in His image, to be transformed to look, live, touch, speak like Him. Can you imagine God Himself longing for you?! Loving you?!

So there you go. If your coffee is gone, we might hug and part ways. (or get a second cup *wink*) But this is what I'm not going to forget: every moment in life is worship.

That's where my joy comes from! It's where I am most fulfilled, most satisfied - when I let Him be the focus, not me. When I turn my eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face.

It draws me to prayer, to reading His Word, to rejoicing in Him. And I'm still learning, still praying, Lord, please create a heart of worship in me.

It's your turn!

What's your biggest go-do, that one thing God reminds you of over and over to not forget?

And what does life look like at this moment, as you sit on a phone, a computer, a tablet, and how can you pause and turn it to worship like the psalmists?

Let's chat in the comments!

 

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

- 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you is it safe... rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!

- Philippians 3:1, 4:4

~♥~