Stop Apologizing
You need to quit feeling guilty or apologizing for your need of regular creative time.
The creative longing isn’t a defect or something you need to get over. It’s how the Creator made you. Your deepest desires, the very things that make your heart come alive, actually serve as a source code that draws you to God…so you can pursue them together.
If you postpone your creative pursuits until everything on your (and everyone else’s) to-do list is checked off, what you were born to create will never be born. Because there will always be more to do.
If you wait for others to understand or validate your creativity, you’ll grow weary and give up. Or the idea will move on. Poet Ruth Stone tells how, while working the fields, poems would come at her. "It was like a thunderous train of air and it would come barreling down (at her) over the landscape." If she didn't capture it, the words would "continue on across the landscape looking for another poet."
The world may view your gifting as an impractical time-consuming hobby—or, worse, a waste of time. Don’t get frustrated if others don’t understand. Most simply don’t know how to react to what you can’t quit thinking about. They won't get it until it's real. That's okay. God gets it. He gave you those longings and talents for you to pursue with him.
Finding daily or weekly time for your creativity won’t be easy…but it is possible. C.S. Lewis found a way to create during a time of intense war and in the midst of his ongoing daily responsibilities. Likely on any given day, those demands felt more pressing than him sitting down to write. Imagine someone observing him sitting at his desk typing what appears to be a simple children's story, wondering if that really was the best use of his time. There’s no way they could, in that moment, grasp the power of Aslan or Narnia would have on millions before The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe was created. Not even J.R.R. Tolkien reacted positively when he initially read an advance copy. Yet C.S. Lewis kept writing.
I’m glad Lewis remained steadfast in his commitment to that story…and to his life-long pursuit of God and creativity. I’m glad you are too.
Stop apologizing. Start creating.
Want more? Order your copy of Waves of Creativity today!
