I don’t know why I’m surprised, but I have met a lot of women who think they’re not the creative type. “I’m not a girly-girl, I’m not creative,” some of them have said. When I ask what they mean by that, they’ll say things like, “I hate doing crafts,” or “I’m not Joanna Gaines,” “I can’t decorate anything,” or “I’m no cook. I’d eat out every night if I could.” If only these women knew how much God had placed in them, so they could be creative!
Creativity is so much more than crafts, home décor, and gourmet meals. Because we have limited our understanding of what creative means, we can’t find it in ourselves. Scientists haven’t even fully figured out what it is. The Bible teaches that God expresses Himself to us and through us in a variety of ways. His creativity—or ours—is not limited to making perfect Christmas sugar cookies or having a Better Homes and Gardens model home. If these types of activities were the only measures of creativity, nearly all of us would be in trouble. And He has not stingily meted out a tiny bit of His creativity to just a few artsy-craftsy-Pinteresty kinds of women and relegated the rest of us girls to a boring and mentally monochromatic existence.
Our God is a creative God. He expressed that once He made the whole universe. He lives inside us. From the vista of our hearts, He delights to continue expressing His creativity in and through us.
Here are five ways God expresses His creativity through us:
1. Problem solving.
One measure of creativity is the ability to perceive and solve problems. God loves to solve problems.
Remember when God allowed the Egyptians to chase the fledgling Hebrew nation to the shores of the Red Sea? While the Israelites were crying out, He was already moving toward them with a smile and a solution. When no one could see a way out, it was nothing for Him to part the sea and let His people run across dry land while He held the bad guys back.
Your brain might start ticking off solutions as soon as you see the problem. The ability of moms to coordinate multiple schedules, help their children do a science project, and relieve their children’s boredom during summer break and long trips are legendary. If you love the challenge of solving problems, whether at work, church, or home, you are being creative.
2. Innovation.
This is what many people think of when they think of creativity: doing something completely new and different. Second Corinthians 5: 17 says that when we are born again, we become new creations; literally, something new that has never existed before.
People like artists, inventors, musicians, dancers, cooks, marketers, and other creative specialists are lumped into this category. However, they are not the only ones who innovate. When someone sees a new angle, arrangement, result, or variation for an existing item or situation, that is also innovation.
A case in point: A German housewife named Melitta Bentz got tired of the gritty coffee grounds that ended up in her coffee every morning from ceramic and metal filters. She began experimenting with her son’s notebook blotting paper and poking holes in the bottom of a brass cup. She eventually perfected a product that she was able to patent in 1918 and formed the Melitta Bentz Company. Today we can enjoy tasty coffee without grinds, thanks to her.
If you can find a variation of something that already exists, not just come up with something completely new—you are creative.
3. Envisioning and initiating potential.
Another measure of creativity is the ability to see and initiate potential. God can transform anything and anyone because He knows what He placed inside of each person that He has ever called into existence. Remember what happened when Moses was born, and his mother Jochebed saw how beautiful he was and knew she had to hide him?
She was purposeful in hiding him in the river very near where it was known that the princess of Egypt often came to bathe. Jochebed coaxed out the potential in her baby’s future. In the same way, it’s our joyful duty to see that same potential in others and coax it into visibility.
Anyone working with people—teachers, nurses, social workers, coaches, moms, friends, neighbors, ministry leaders—has the privilege of spying that potential in another human being and inviting it out of them to a glorious reveal. If you love to see the potential in another person and work to develop it, you are creative.
4. Conceive and generate multiple solutions.
God loves variety. He loves to show off. We are wowed by the endless and dazzling variety of flowers He has created. He has no end to the types of solutions He crafts for each person’s problems.
How many ways did God tell His generals like Joshua and David to approach a battle? How many different ways did Jesus heal people? If you can conceive and generate multiple solutions for a single situation, there’s no getting around it—you’re creative.
5. Meeting a need.
A final measure of creativity is to encounter a need and meet it. You know how God loves to help people by meeting needs. He loved to address impossible situations, like heal the woman with the 18-year hemorrhage and feed a small group of 20,000 people with a little boy’s lunch, call a fisherman to walk on water, and raise a dead son back to life for his widowed mom.
It takes great faith to see how God could intervene in an impossible situation. When you love someone, you will go to great lengths to meet their needs—just like God does.
Do you know how many ministries and organizations exist today due to someone following the creative Spirit of God to meet a need? Just look around at your city, state, country, and world, and you will have a small idea of the creative length God will go to meet needs. He loves to show off His creative power and strength through you. He can’t help it!
If you love to think of ways to meet needs and enlist the help of God and others to do so, you are creative.
Creativity is not only being pin-worthy, it’s being aware of the life of God inside you and letting Him loose to do what He does best: be Himself. As He uses you to minister to others, you will be delighted at all the amazing things He can do and you’ll see His creativity—and yours—in action.
~ By Glenda Gordon, MSW. Glenda writes the weekly blog, “For Single Christians, One is a Whole Number.” Additionally, she has authored several articles for Single Matters magazine, and she is a speaker. Her ministry focus includes Christian singles, self-care, biblical counseling, and more. She lives in Indian Trail, NC. Visit her blog at glendablogz.com.
