How Not to Turn a Gift Into a Curse
The Gift We Turn Into a Curse
As long as I can remember, I’ve always been making stuff. Whether it’s drawing comics, writing stories, or recording music, something in me is compelled to create. And if you’re like me in that respect, you know that the act of creativity can be one filled with great joy, a God-given act of worship and delight that makes you feel excited and grateful to be alive on this incredible planet.
But it’s a blessing that I can all too easily turn into a curse. For just as I’ve known times of delight and exultation through art, I’ve also known times where creativity has felt like a ruthless taskmaster, a source of despair. If you’re an artist, you likely know what I’m talking about: the sense that being creative is a burdensome task you have to undertake in a search to prove yourself.
As the Lord has worked in my heart and drawn me to reflect upon the two different attitudes I can approach creativity with, I’ve come to consider them in the form of two images. One is that of a self-important artist high up on a pedestal, looking down at the world below, and the other is of a child at play in the garden. Let's unpack those.
“If you’re an artist, you likely know what I’m talking about: the sense that being creative is a burdensome task you have to undertake in a search to prove yourself.”
The Way of the World
Like most — or, let’s be honest, like all – creatives, I bear within me the scars of childhood wounds that I’m tempted to believe that my own sheer creativity can somehow heal. When I approach creativity with this goal, I am inexorably drawn into the tireless quest to seek acceptance through my art, to achieve worldly success. In other words, I end up using my art to seek my own glory.
This is a self-focused approach to creativity. It’s everywhere in our world — and it is a surefire formula for burn-out and misery. In this creative mode, your art’s purpose is entirely contingent on other people’s reactions. Art becomes a tool for seeking power and autonomy. When I fall into this trap, I wind up feeling haggard, angry, impotent. The joy just drains out of me.
I think one of the sources of this vision of creativity is the influence of the 19th-century Romantic movement, which popularized a toxic vision of artists as cultural high priests who understand the true nature of the world. The role of the creative took on the significance of a biblical prophet bringing truth to the masses.
As Western culture has increasingly looked less to Christ and his church for direction and meaning, it has increasingly turned to the artist to deliver these things instead. Think of the way people follow pop singers and movie stars, obsessing over what they have to say, looking to them for direction in how to live life itself. Consider too the way people approach art museums like secular cathedrals, speaking in hushed voices as if in the presence of something sacred, contemplating manmade art as if contemplating the divine.
This is a vision we’re all heir to in the Western world, but it is a burden too great to bear. When artists shoulder a responsibility we were never meant to, the task of being an artist becomes impossibly heavy. It’s hard enough to pick up a pen to write something original, and far more so if you have this intolerable weight upon you.
But there is another way, a better way — a way of joy.
“It is in approaching creativity as a child at play that I draw close to the Lord and enjoy the Creator through the act of creating. Art becomes not a way to earn validation, but a way to celebrate God’s love and enjoy him through his creation.”
To Edenize the World
Think of the original task God gave Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden so long ago. We were to cultivate the world, to make it like Eden. We were called to be good stewards — but we were not called to pretend we are gods.
Gardening itself is a God-given, primal creative task. But good gardeners don’t invent seeds (God already did that) — they plant them. When someone is gardening, they are not thinking, “I am a god, look at these plants I made.” A successful gardener does not need to pretend they invented the seeds or created the garden. Freed of such a burden, they can enjoy the actual process of gardening, of getting their hands in the dirt and helping new life flourish.
Children at Play
That is why I think the image of a child at play is a true picture of our calling as creatives. Instead of being self-sufficient movers of earth and sky, we are supposed to be like kids playing with the Legos their dad gave them. Kids don’t have to pretend they manufactured the Legos themselves — instead, they get to enjoy them. And in so doing, they can build something new and fantastic with them.
It is in approaching creativity as a child at play that I draw close to the Lord and enjoy the Creator through the act of creating. Art becomes not a way to earn validation, but a way to celebrate God’s love and enjoy him through his creation. Our creativity’s purpose becomes aligned with the famous opening lines of the Westminster Shorter Catechism:
Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
When I think of creativity as a response to who God is, unfettered by a need for the approval of others, I feel free. I am excited to make art, because I realize my identity is secure in what Christ has done, not in whether I am creatively successful. I am free of the intolerable burden of self-creation. I am free to enjoy God through my art. The creative act is like being a kid in the world's biggest sandbox full of endless toys given to us by a kind Father. And that is a life-giving vision indeed.
