We were made to create beauty. This unhindered desire to create beauty is best seen in young children. Having little experience with disappointment or indifference, they unashamedly create and share their magnificent creations. Even the tiniest hand takes a crayon and draws a faint line or possibly the infamous circle with two sticks that hardly resembles a person. Unable to contain his excitement, the child runs to the nearest adult to share in the joy of what he has created. Children instinctively do what they were created to do. Create beauty!
When our daughter was young, she put on dance shows almost nightly. She would dress up, make popcorn and look forward to the evening when we would sit on the stairs and she would dance on the landing. Her brothers came for the popcorn and we came to clap. She was looking for a place to share her beauty and creativity. Beauty is rarely enjoyed alone and is meant to be shared. Our daughter wasn't just asking us to enjoy her dance, but to enjoy the beauty of HER.
Children are asking if they have something worth offering and looking to the adults in their lives for the answer. It is beauty emerging from their mind into the tangible concrete world. God created us to create beauty. Every created thing was once a thought in someone's mind. This fact fascinates me when I look around at our world.
The building I see, the eccentric outfit, the music I listen to, the charity doing hard work, every business, every fancy food item, every hairstyle, every car and every garden. Even on this beautiful spring day at the way too crowded Costco, there was a lady laughing in delight as she was looking through the many plants and planning her garden. Her ideas began to tangibly take shape as she stood oblivious to the traffic jam she was causing. Others smiled at her obvious excitement and laughter while some showed annoyance and tried to push past the interruption in their day.
Everything in nature was an idea in the mind of God. WE began as a thought in God's mind. How crazy is that? Perhaps, He clapped in delight at the thought of us. Ephesians 4:1 says that He chose us BEFORE the foundation of the world. Creating is simply a thought becoming reality. Creating, joy and beauty go hand in hand.
Creativity requires courage and vulnerability and is inhibited by shame. Sometimes we quit creating or lose hope in areas thinking beauty will never come to that place. All of us have experienced the feeling of offering something of ourselves and experiencing rejection or had something we tried to create turn out less than beautiful. In fact, it feels like failure and shame and we will do almost anything to avoid feeling these.
We try to create a peaceful home and some days it is anything but that. Sometimes we try to create a business or a piece of art or a book and no one seems to notice or it fails. Sometimes we try to create a relationship and it ends badly. Maybe we gave our whole heart to something and threw our whole selves in and the results have been different than we had hoped. Sometimes we create things that others don't like.
The stories are endless and we all have stories of disappointments, setbacks and real heartache. It can be messy. Sometimes we would rather hide than keep creating. Some of us are too afraid to create or possibly too ashamed of past mistakes. We live our lives with our faces down and sometimes are so busy looking at our past or our failures, we fail to see the moments in our lives today where we can create beauty right now in this moment. It's sometimes easier to live on autopilot than to live with the hope we can create something new and beautiful with God. It's a lot easier to hide in shame and disappointment instead of seeing the hope of beauty in the future or in our current moment. We just see mess.
BUT...
Will we be brave enough to create beauty anyway?
How we answer the question determines how we live today. Do we see ourselves as creators of beauty whether it is crafting a piece of art or creating a moment of beauty where there is none. Every single moment is pregnant with the possibility of beauty if only we are aware and brave enough. Sometimes we only see the burned out fields where God is wanting to create new beauty. He can.
The world is captivated by something dire becoming something of beauty. Buildings, people, stories, lives all hold a special beauty when it is no longer what it once was and beauty emerges from something ugly. This is the hope that beauty creates. If that broken and ugly thing can become beautiful then there is hope for us all.
A few weeks ago, God showed me a picture of my child self coloring a picture. I was working as hard as I could, tongue hanging out in concentration. I was feeling really proud of my paper and suddenly I accidentally ripped it. Immediately, I felt shame because I was trying my hardest and it wasn't good enough. I wanted to throw the paper in the trash and go do something else. As I sat there, God came over, picked up my paper and smilingly admired it. He didn't shake his head at my mistake, but saw what I had made and all of the effort it took. Slowly, he got some tape and and with equal care taped it along the back. The tear was still there, but it could barely be seen. He smiled as he handed it back to me. That's redemption. That's grace. That's beauty for ashes.
Creating beauty doesn't just look like creating art, although it can be that. Beauty can be spectacular, but it is also evident in small moments. Sometimes it looks like being brave enough to face our own selves and instead of being self-protective with someone we love, we decide to make an effort towards them. In that moment, a little repair in the relationship is made and a bit of beauty is created making way for more beauty. A little flicker of light in a dark space. Forgiveness and beauty go hand in hand. Beauty is emerging when we love someone a little bit more than we did yesterday. Sometimes beauty emerges so slowly it can barely be seen, but it will emerge if we let it and live aware of our God-given power to create it.
Sometimes beauty looks like smiling at the person behind the checkout counter who is frazzled. It can look like sending flowers to a sick friend. Other times it looks like sitting down with almost dried up and forgotten paints and painting the sunset. Beauty is trying something new and laughing or stumbling upon a new hobby. Perhaps, it's writing the story in the mind that is waiting to be written. Some have a song, the world longs to hear. Other times it may be skipping an errand to talk with our hurting neighbor. Much beauty goes to the grave as only an idea in a mind.
Beauty often involves the people around us. It is what we find when we choose quiet and take in the breathtakingly beautiful God. He enables us to see the beauty around us. If we begin to look for beauty in our moments, our days will be beautiful. Mundane moments become carriers of hope. They become pregnant with expectation about what God may do if we let Him.
When we say we want to create beauty in THE world, that feels too broad, but what if we decide to create beauty in OUR world? The one we live in right now. Our home, our job, our friends, our family, our church and our community is our world no matter where we live. Our world is where we are and this is where we start.
Looking for beauty is not unlike what Jesus did. He really saw people and this is what looking for beauty does. It takes our focus off the unimportant and places it on the important. Jesus' life was beautiful. He never failed to see the importance of the moment and brought healing, grace and beauty to every place of darkness He encountered. Beauty is subversive and has the power to push back the darkness and make a little more space for light. God created the world to be beautiful and the enemy is on a mission to destroy it in every way; not only the world at large, but also our small world in which we live. The enemy is looking to steal our lives through moments, but God is looking to heal our lives and world through creativity and beauty one moment at a time. We were created BY God to bring His beauty into the world in all kinds of ways. WE are God's handiwork (work done by hand and with intention) created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God created in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10
What beauty do you have to share with the world today?
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,[a]
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor. Isaiah 61:1-3