Passion - Becoming a Creative Again. Part 1

I’m on my 3rd career now. From the business of the corporate world during the past 15 years, most of my job now is divided between being a personal carer and a reborn creative person.

Recently, I’ve found myself reflecting back to my formative creative years, as an art student and medical illustrator. Like all art students, college further shaped a way of seeing already within, developing it further to looking at the world differently.

When I glanced back at my story, I can now see that before asking Christ into my life, and for quite some time afterwards, my creativity was performance related. All I did had an element of performance in it, drawn as I was to create using mixed media, photography, music and video, often in collaboration with others, conveying what I in partnership perceived of this world and our comments on it.

It wasn’t until in the late 90’s, when working on projects with other Christian musicians and creatives, I began to recognise my ‘performance commitment change’. It began to dawn on me that I didn’t need to impress God with what I was doing to be accepted by him. He wanted me to create in partnership with Him, even in the midst of performance and in doing so I would find a joy not previously experienced. In my core I began to understand that producing creatively, even in performance, comes after a relationship and that for Christian creatives, God is always the initiator to which we respond. 1 John 1: we loved Him because He first loved us.

Previously I had been trying to express my love for God through my creativity, but had not entered into that place of receiving, a scared place in which worship is so important. Whether in music, dance, writing or the visual arts; whether in the celebration of nature or the human condition, it is all part of the worship of Him that is the beginning of any creative process.

I used to be very poor at receiving - I still struggle now. It has only been during the last few years when my life circumstances came crashing in, forcing me to let go and stop trying to prove I was worthy, that I was able to start receiving freely, change my approach and begin to see the fruit of my creativity as I collaborated in a meaningful way with God.

In his grace and mercy I’m entering a new season of being the creative person he has always intended me to be, his plan. Jeremiah 29:11.