The Source of Creativity

Would you like to be more creative?  When I contemplate creativity I think of people like Mozart and Michelangelo, creative geniuses from whom beauty and artistry seemed to spill out.  Today I marvel at the creativity of authors like J.K. Rowling or film makers like Steven Spielberg who create entire worlds out of their imaginations.  What is the source of such creativity?

It’s probably a complex convergence of talent, training, opportunity, motivation and just plain hard work, but a spring of creativity resides in each one of us.  Some people just do a better job of tapping into it.

Standard Equipment

The reason I believe creativity is standard equipment in every human being is that we are created in the image of a fantastically creative God.  He created the earth and all its possibilities, and then he invited us to do some creating with the resources he gave us.

“God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it..”  (Genesis 1:28)  To rule and subdue sounds a little heavy-handed, but it means to make productive and beneficial use of the earth’s resources.  God invited us to further create with the raw materials that God created for us.

The Bible begins in a garden and ends in a city.

David Bruce Hegeman, in his book Plowing in Hope: Toward a Biblical Theology of Culture, made a very interesting observation: “The Bible begins in a garden and ends in a city.”   I think God expects us to explore, to build, to dream, to imagine and to create.   If you know God, if you understand the heart behind his creation, then you have the opportunity to live a creative life in his image.

You are creative.  By definition.

Just for fun, here’s a little more inspiration from The Quote Garden:

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
~Michelangelo

“My alphabet starts with this letter called yuzz.  It’s the letter I use
to spell yuzz-a-ma-tuzz.  You’ll be sort of surprised what there is to be
found once you go beyond ‘Z’ and start poking around!”  ~Dr. Seuss

“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody
has thought.”  ~Albert Szent-Györgyi
.