God's Creativity in Crisis

Thoughts for the Day April 23, 2020

Yesterday I mentioned my grandmother who lived with our family the last year I was home. She was fun-loving, adorable, short, sassy, and full of life.  And  she was an incredible cook. Since  I was engaged and planning to get married,  we decided  it was time to improve my cooking skills and that she would be the perfect teacher. Each day we would meet in the kitchen at 3:00 sharp. I would get the food together and she would begin giving instructions. Grandma Dottie had been cooking for many years and she didn’t believe  good cooking  required recipes that originated in cookbooks, instead it was all about getting the taste right with a little  bit of this and a little bit of that. 

When I asked her about her lack of interest in cookbooks, she told me that it was much better to  learn to cook by taste rather than an instruction book because it taught one to be more creative and less methodical in  their cooking. I will forever be grateful for that  bit of advice because I believe it reaches beyond just cooking. 

Don’t get me wrong, directions and instructions are generally a must but too much regimented instruction  can stifle our god given ability to be creative. 

Man is the pinnacle of God’s creation, and the human mind is wondrously complex and creative. God has granted  us a mind like no other animal with a freedom to think for ourselves. It is a godlike privilege that sets us apart from animals and robots. Even in our current dilemma of social distancing, we must continue to find  creative ways to be “the church” when gathering in church buildings is impossible. But when God’s Spirit fills our minds there is no telling what we can do as a people. After all we are made in His image! Let’s ask God to control our minds and fill us with His inspired and imaginative thoughts  for sharing the Good News during this time of uncertainty. Have a blessed and glorious day!

Genesis 1:26-27 New International Version (NIV)

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,^[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

²⁷ So God created mankind in his own image,

      in the image of God he created them;

      male and female he created them