Knowing your creative gifts is important.

Knowing God is far more so. Intimacy with God always comes before impact for God.

That’s why we must begin here.

God knit your gifts into you before you were born. He gave you specific passions so the two of you could pursue them together. The more you do, the more you know God. The more you know God, the more you discover your true identity and purpose. This is a beautiful never-ending circle.

Your canvas is the place where your presence and gifting play out.

But before your creativity can happen on the canvas, a transformation must happen in you. And that process requires training.

That is how it always is. The young Zorro must face the Master’s Circle. Katniss Everdeen had to survive the ultimate games. Underdog Rocky Balboa had to train endless hours in the boxing ring. In the process, each was becoming something more than they were. Their future victories would first be won in the hidden places.

In the book of Exodus, we’re given a glimpse into how God infuses people with creativity.

Moses wrote that God called Bezalel, who was of the tribe of Judah, by name and then filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and in all craftsmanship.

Your primary identity is a son or daughter of God. Though the world and others (and often we) try to define us in helpful and hurtful ways, never trade your foundational identity as a son or daughter of God for those temporal or false labels.

We can limit our creative potential by limiting how we see ourselves.

Let me ask you a question. Are you introverted or extroverted? Before you answer (and I know you already have an answer), let me ask a few more questions. 

Welcome to what I call the Empty Auditorium exercise. It’s designed to help identify what creative pursuit makes your heart beat faster.

Imagine you’re in a room designed for an audience. Maybe it seats ten. Maybe ten thousand. You decide.

If you’re a bit puzzled by what pursuing your creativity looks like, that’s normal.

The discovery process is finding out what makes us come alive. It’s knowing what you love to do—which isn’t always the same as what you’re paid to do or even as what comes naturally. You may be amazing at a skill that brings you no joy. It pays the bills but doesn’t bring life. I’m not saying you should stop doing that. I’m suggesting you also start discovering what makes your heart beat faster. 

From the beginning, the enemy has tried to use chaos against the Creator and creation. Today, he also opposes us and our creativity.

I’m convinced chaos is fueled by the enemy’s intense hatred for all who are trying to bring life and light into the world.

In the face of such massive havoc, our talents may seem inconsequential. A nice gesture but far too little. Like holding up a paintbrush to ward off an oncoming hurricane.

Before inviting you into something larger, God wants to initiate you. 

Because, let’s face it: as talented as you are, you’ve been slammed pretty hard by chaos. Or perhaps you’re weary from trying to do everything in your own strength. What you need for this part of the journey is an extra dose of patience and humility. Be open to learning a new way to pursue what you love to do. Be willing to be the student rather than the expert. Don’t assume you already know your role in the story that hasn’t been told yet. 

In the movie The Mask of Zorro, a young fighter has lost much. He is angry and seeking revenge against the enemy. An older, wiser warrior—the sage— stops him from entering the battle unprepared. 

Don’t blame yourself for not feeling creative. The enemy works overtime to hide it from us, diminish it, and accuse us of having no talent. Don’t believe his lies anymore. You are creative. 

I think you’re incredibly creative.

Pause and notice your reaction to those words. I’m guessing it was something like, “Creative? I’m not creative.” Or, “You’ve got to be kidding. You don’t know me. My creativity isn’t valuable or worth fighting for. No one even notices it.” 

Our creativity is a fusion of our unique presence and gifting. This is a huge concept. Because it includes everyone and excludes no one except those who refuse to enter into their gifting with God. 

Have you ever considered that we are continuing to be created as we create? The God who made us shapes us as we pursue the gifts he gave us, bringing us from disorder to order.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV)

It begins with a few grains of doubt. Yet the sand quickly multiplies the more we give in to our anxieties and try to solve life’s problems in our own strength. And the enemy does everything in his power to initiate and amplify the very things that got us trapped in the first place. 

God’s motive in giving you specific talents isn’t primarily so you’ll be productive. Here’s your gift. Now get busy making things happen. It is so your desires can find their fulfillment in him. Productivity and efficiency aren’t what he’s most interested in. They measure the external performance but never the internal rhythm of your heart. God doesn’t need your help as much as he wants your heart. Whenever you start to focus more on your talents and gifts than on him, you miss the main invitation. Which is to pursue them together. With him. 

Whenever I grow impatient, or think I know best and forge ahead from my own strength, the results are never optimal. It initially may feel good. Hey, at least I’m doing something. But later, when things go wrong or my actions led to unexpected consequences, I begin to doubt if I made the right decision. 

Choosing to live with expectancy rather than expectations doesn’t mean we accept situations passively. Or pretend everything is sunshine and roses. Not at all. But we step into it with God. This requires the humility to accept the fact that we don’t know how things will ultimately work out. Thankfully, the future isn’t constrained to our list of potential outcomes. Where we see looming problems and limited options, He sees an exponential range of possibilities. 

There is an ocean of difference between expectations and expectancy. 

Expectations indicate a sense of what should be. It is how we expect things to go, often veering into entitlement. If circumstances don’t go the way we want, we feel cheated, irritated, or even offended. It’s not fair. Change—especially change we didn’t ask for—is viewed as an interruption to our plans. Many of us have carried unmet expectations for years that we need to let go of. Doing so will release these toxic emotions over something we never should have counted on to begin with.