Recently, I came across a lifeless but shimmering bug. I am no entomologist, but Google told me it was a ‘parent bug’—a species of stink bugs. If you disturb them, they will actually stink up the place.
It is called the parent bug because it offers parental care to its own and the offspring of others, for longer than many other insects. There are more than 4700 species of stink bugs in the world!
Now imagine the volume and variety of birds, flowers, animals, fish, and trees in creation—their sizes, species, life-cycles, and colours.
All creation is a gift, and the power of creativity we receive from God is also a gift. It all starts with the first verse of the Bible, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1, NIV).
Creation is Gloriously Unnecessary
God is our Creator. But there is a clear distinction between him and his creatures. In his book Biblical Critical Theory, Christopher Watkin explains that the universe is wholly dependent upon God for its very existence, but God does not depend on the universe for his existence.
If the universe depends on God for its existence, and if the universe had a beginning, then there was a time when the universe was unnecessary, and you were unnecessary. Think about it. Pretty humbling, right?
As Watkin says, “Neither we nor the universe are necessary. We may be important, precious, glorious even, but preciously and gloriously unnecessary.”
Creativity Involves Putting Yourself Out There
If creation is unnecessary, artists or writers are instantly vulnerable. With each creative effort, they put themselves out there. They offer something personal to the world, which reveals something about themselves. So, what if the work receives rejection? What if people misuse it, or nobody cares about it?
Sit in that discomfort for a moment.
Now, think about the work of creation. Think of how deeply personal it is for God to create image bearers. Talk about putting yourself out there!
Think about God doing that with the foreknowledge that his work will often be rejected, misused or dismissed. Yet, with much delight, he created the world (Prov. 8:31)
God has woven his delight of gift-giving into our beings.
As unnecessary as you may be, God is a gift-giver. Though the gift-giving of creativity is gloriously unnecessary, it reveals something about the giver. He invites us to encounter him, receive his grace, and enjoy his generosity through his creation itself.
Take a moment to think about how God’s generosity in creation could challenge any preconceived notions you have about what God is like.
Creativity Offers Needlessly Extravagant Gift-giving
The 4700 stink bugs are part of the 5.5 million species of insects on Earth. Think about the extravagance and superabundance of creation! What does this tell you about our Creator? One may say, God is not a minimalist.
If the gift-giver in Genesis 1 is God himself, then all creation, including ourselves, are gift-receivers. In view of the fact that we even exist, the gift receiver owes gratitude to the giver. Gratitude ought to be our fundamental posture towards him.
When we love someone, we delight in giving them gifts. God has woven his delight of gift-giving into our beings. His creative generosity is an expression of outward-facing love—a heart that is always directed towards another.
So when you are generous, when you extend yourself needlessly, when you gift things unnecessarily, when you create, when you write an article or a blogpost or a song, you are imitating the one who first expressed his love for us.
In fact, your needlessly generous giving of yourself through your extravagant works of creativity are works that align with the work of our Creator himself.
Creativity Involves Forming and Filling
“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Gen 1:2, emphasis added).
In this verse, the terms formless and empty are Hebrew words tohu and bohu, respectively. The phrase tohu wabohu describes the formlessness and emptiness of everything before God began to create.
God made us to be his generous, gift-giving, image-bearers.
God started to form structures and spaces—the sky, land, and sea. Then he formed systems and rhythms like day and night. He gives formlessness structure, order, and form. Then he fills these structures with countless stars and innumerable species of living creatures—all that beauty and creativity. So now the emptiness is teeming with life.
God formed and filled the tohu wabohu with order and creativity. No extremes; just a beautiful harmony of both.
Too much order and form can be stifling. It can make the process too formulaic, unsurprising, sterile, and monotonous. However, unchecked creativity can be chaotic, boundary-less, unpredictable, and often exhausting.
Take a moment and think about your own predispositions. Do you tend towards excessive orderliness or chaotic creativity?
Creativity Thrives Within Ordered Structures
The God who formed and filled is the same who breathed life into each one of us. God made us to be his generous, gift-giving, image-bearers. We offer our creativity, art, and writing as a gift to the world around us. Through God’s Spirit, into the chaos and emptiness, we hope to bring form and fill it with life.
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7).
Once again, God formed and filled. He formed man from the dust of the ground. Then he filled his nostrils with the breath of life.
Pause for a moment and take a deep breath. Breathe in, and breathe out.
Imagine the beauty of this reality. The God of order and creativity breathed his breath of life into us.
He breathed his life-sustaining ability to create form, structure, rhythms, and order. He breathed his life-giving, creative abilities into us. He entrusted us with the call and capacity to transform the “tohu wabohu” in the world around us—to form and to fill, as his image-bearers.
Creativity and the Power of God
When sin distorted our capacity and corrupted our desires, God sent the true and perfect image-bearer of God to redeem and restore his creation. Through the power of God’s redemptive work for the world in Christ Jesus, we can imitate his creative work in the world for his glory.
