The Creative Soul: Creative YOU!

April 26, 2022

Today we are starting a short, two-part message series on the Creative Soul. Who here is creative? I brought my creativity detector today, and let’s see: beep, beep, beep, beep, it is beeping like crazy! You are all creative! When I grew up, my mom was an artist, she loved watercolor painting. My brother Joe, who was closest in age to me, he was good at painting and drawing, too. Me? Not so much. I thought I wasn’t creative. 

I had friends who were artists: Pam and Candy. I remember walking to school with them and Pam saying, “People say I’m so amazing, how good I am at drawing. Their praise seemed like too much to her. They made to big a deal of her drawing. Pam said, “Everybody can draw.”  

When you’re five years old, do you think you can draw? Yes, you do! Are you ready to paint? Cool! You will stick your fingers in paint and do fingerpainting in a heartbeat. But somewhere along the way, we lose our confidence. Nevertheless, we’re all creative. 

Today’s message is Creative YOU! You are creative! Next week it’s “Creative WE” about the church!  

What is the fifth word in the Bible? “In the beginning God…….” what did God do? God created the heavens and the earth.” God creates light, and the sky, the sun, moon and stars, earth, living creatures, and plants. And God creates humans in his image. The Bible tells us that God is a creator.  It says we are made in God’s image. That makes us creators too. We don’t create the sun and stars. We don’t create on the scale that God does. But we are different from the animals. We are creators. Where a deer, does it think, “You know, I’ve had enough of running from mountain lions and wolves and hunters. I’m going to go run towards them!” Deer don’t think that! They wouldn’t last long with that creative thought! 

People on the other hand can say, I don’t like my house. I think I’ll sell it and buy a different one. You can change your way of living. Or you might think, I want to help other people, I’m going to volunteer! We can look at our lives and have a new thought about how we are going to live. We are made in the image of the Creator; we are creative souls. You are a work of art. You are a good creation of God. You are also an artist. Maybe you don’t draw or paint, but you are an artist creating your life.  

But sometimes, we get stuck. We decide there’s no use. There is nothing new I can do under the sun. We get stuck doing the same thing day after day, not trying to follow our dreams. 

Moses is a giant of the faith. But he had a rough start. In Acts, Stephen gives a speech to the Jewish religious leaders about the history of God with the people of Israel. He says that Pharoah, the king of Egypt, oppressed our people. Pharoah decided all the male Hebrew babies should be killed! And Stephen says (Acts 7:20) “At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child.” 

Moses should have been killed, but to keep him safe, his parents put him in a basket and floated him in the river. It’s hard to believe. We have safety equipment for kids, car seats, and we have recalls when a crib or a pacifier is unsafe. How in the world could someone put their baby in a basket in the river? The baby could drown! Or get eaten by a crocodile! It was definitely creative, but also stupid! 

Someone found baby Moses. It’s hard to believe, but Pharaoh’s daughter found him! She decided to raise baby Moses. He would go back and live with his family a few years until he is weaned. Then at the age of 3 or 4 he goes to live in a new family, with a new grandpa, Pharaoh, who had ordered him, and all the other little Hebrew boys killed! 

Stephen says Moses grew and was powerful in speech and action. He was a Hebrew, but he lived as an Egyptian, as part of the royal family. One day when Moses was 40, he saw an Egyptian mistreating a Hebrew. Moses killed the Egyptian. Moses thought the Hebrews would see that God had sent Moses to rescue them from slavery. But they did not.  A few days later, when Moses tried to stop a fight between two Hebrews, the instigator of the fight said to him, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” 

When Moses heard this, he ran away from Egypt. Moses had believed God wanted to do something new and creative through him and help the Hebrews be free from slavery. But Moses realized even the Hebrews, who he wanted to help, were not happy with him! This would not work. So, he ran away to Midian. Moses gave up that dream of getting his people out of slavery. 

Moses got married and had two sons. 40 years pass since he ran away to Midian. He’s now about 80 years old. One day, Moses sees a burning bush, and God speaks to him through it. (Is our God creative or what? Who would think of God appearing as a burning bush?!) And God says to Moses, I have seen the people’s oppression. I have heard their cries. I am sending you back to Egypt. 

Moses had a lot of trauma in his life: he is now the only Hebrew male of his age that is alive. His family was forced to give him up at a young age. Moses had an identity crisis: was he Egyptian? Or was he a Hebrew? One time, Moses chose to help the Hebrews, and they weren’t impressed. So, he ran away to Midian He had given up on being either Egyptian or Hebrew. He was a foreigner in Midian. But now Moses is 80 and God wants more from him. He wants Moses to go back to do the thing he decided he would never do again. Moses made up his mind he would never again try to help the Hebrews. We all have our hurts and tragedies in life. We have things we say, “Never again,” to. Things we say, “I could never do that.” God leads us to make our lives into masterpieces, if we trust in Him.  

Moses had a lot of excuses why he wasn’t the one to help the Hebrews. But God persisted. Moses finally agreed to return to Egypt to set the people of Israel free from slavery. And it was very difficult. God sent plague after plague to afflict the Egyptians. But Moses wouldn’t let the people go. Finally, Moses led the Israelites to escape through the Red Sea, and they were free! 

Stephen said in Acts 7:20: “At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child.” You are no ordinary child. You are wonderfully and marvelously made. Life isn’t easy, but if you have the courage to risk when God calls you, you create a masterpiece of your life! You are no ordinary child. Your future is on the other side of your failures. 

God spoke to Moses and said, you were made for more than running away from your purpose. The voice of God calls you to more: more compassion, more risk, more passion.  

When I was studying to be a minister, I had to go get psychological testing. It was a long, written test, and then they take a history or your life, and ask you a lot of questions. Finally, you are presented with a summary of your psychological health. The thing I remember that psychologist said to me from my testing was, “Don’t get stuck.” Don’t get stuck in life. That was good advice for me. It is good advice for all of us. Are you enjoying life? Are you laughing every day? Have you thought about the life you want to create? Are you known by love? Are you a voice of hope? Are you living by faith? God calls us to a creative life, God always calls us to more: to be more heroic, more compassionate, more passionate. 

God doesn’t call us to what the world thinks is success. There’s nothing wrong with money and the good things of life. But God’s version of success is when the world is different because of you being here.  

Do you know what a mosaic is? It is when you take little, broken pieces of glass or ceramic and you put them together in mortar to make a picture. Each of us is a mosaic. God takes the broken pieces of you and me and creates a masterpiece that God’s light shines through. As long as we don’t get stuck. As long as we dream and have faith, we can take the talents and passion He has given us and create the life we were made for.  

My challenge for you this week, is to imagine your future if you were an optimist. If you never said, “Never again” to anything. If you stopped saying, “I could never do that.” Imagine an optimistic future for you! 

You are no ordinary child. Your future is on the other side of your failures. May your life be a work of art that makes the world better and more beautiful! Amen.