Why Every Creator Needs to Know God's Creative Purpose

Is it possible to discover God's "why" in the creation story? 

It may seem impossible to be able to figure out God's mindset and purposes when He is all-knowing and we are not...but it's an essential question to ask if we want to truly be fulfilled as creatives. 

 As artists, musicians, and freelancers, we often focus on the "how" of our craft, but beyond the "how" is a "why." And there's a profound connection between understanding God's creative purpose and unlocking our own creative potential.

As we unpack these ideas, which we explore in depth in our new YouVersion reading plan "The Creator's Purpose",  you'll gain a fresh perspective on your artistic calling. You'll learn to see your creativity not just as a skill, but as a divine gift with profound purpose.

Want to read our new YouVersion bible reading plan with our community?
Sign up here and we'll send you the link to the plan when it goes live, along with additional materials and updates when we are reading the plan together, starting April 21st!

godandgigs.com/reading-plan

Transcript

Do you believe it's possible to understand God's creative purpose, the very reason why he made things the way he made things? And if you can, how does that impact the way you create things? Is it possible that God left a blueprint for us as creatives, as musicians, as artists, as freelancers on not just how to create, but why we create? Well, in this episode, I'm going to explore a little bit of why you do need to understand God's creative purpose and why that can be so impactful for your entire creative life. Give me just a moment to welcome those of you who are new to our show, and then we'll get right into this fascinating and important conversation. Hello and welcome to our show. Thank you so much for making this podcast a part of your creative day. And if you are new new to our show, let me quickly introduce myself. My name is Allen C. Paul. I'm a host of this podcast, the God and Gigs Show. I'm an author and a creative coach. And here's where we help you to thrive in any area of your creative life, no matter what your profession, whether you're doing this as a profession or simply as a hobby. But we help you to transform your creative life from the inside out by applying timeless spiritual principles to the temporary creative problems that you might be facing now. As I said in the open, there is such a mystery behind God's creative purpose. We all know if you read your Bible at all, that God made everything. But how he made it has often been the subject of a lot of discussion. And I'm not talking about just the science and whether or not God made the world in seven days and Big Bang and all that kind of stuff. I'm talking about the process he used and the purpose of why he did it. Did God simply make everything because he wanted us people to be around? Did he want a world that was filled with creative people like you and I? Was he actually giving a part of his spirit to us so that we could recreate more things, more beautiful things? Well, that kind of conversation is exactly why I wanted to tell you all about what we are discovering in the Book of Genesis. As I have been studying this and reading it, I've been finding so many clues to how we as creators, little C creators, should be living our lives and how we should be conducting our creative lives. Because if we can model everything after the big C creator, then I think our lives as creators is going to become so much more clear, so much more effective, and so much more fulfilling. So let me tell you a Little bit of why I believe you need to know this. Well, the first point really goes back to what I just said. You really can't understand creative work without understanding the Creator. Like everyone who has ever sat down to write a poem or to compose a song or to create a painting on a canvas, there is an implicit understanding that we can't do this simply by our own human ingenuity or inspiration. As a matter of fact, I think that's why writer's block and creative block is so frustrating. When you can't think of something to create, you instantly realize that you have limits. To create something new or innovative, it takes something beyond us. And that inspiration, that divine spark of creativity, is what I think we all realize we need. And the only source is God. Now, of course, I'm going to tell you, you need to pray, you need to study the Bible, you need to be around other Christians and as a Christian, creative, if you want to build on this inspiration. But another thing you can do is study how God creates. Because if you know that you have a model and a template of how the master Creator did everything. I've always found it interesting that God decided to make everything in six days and then spelled out the process. You see, God probably could, and I think absolutely could, simply have said one thing, spoken everything into existence, and just called it a day instead of mapping out a process. So I've got to ask you, do you think God did that because he had to or because he wanted to show us something? This is why I think it's so important for us to sit back and take a look at God's process. Not only that, but God's purpose. So when you understand that God did all this stuff in Genesis for us to understand more about him, we as creators have a gold mine of information and inspiration and truly divine revelation to understand how we can live our lives. Now, I just mentioned the fact that inspiration really comes from us knowing how God creates and being able to tap into that. But there's another reason why you really need to know God's creative plan and purpose. It's because whenever we get into the realm of creating for a purpose, we can sometimes get that mixed up. We think the product is the purpose. I'm creating so that there'll be a song, so that there'll be a painting, so that there'll be a book. But is that truly the purpose of our creativity is just to make stuff? Or is there a reason behind the things that we make? Is there something deeper that we're trying to Achieve with our creative work to make the world more beautiful, to bless other people, to spread the gospel, to make the world a better place, to really be authentic about emotions, to help people connect. You see, all these purposes are once again divinely inspired. And this is why I'm so excited to tell you as I'm recording that we're getting ready to release a new devotional on the YouVersion app. That's the Bible.com app. Most people, if you have a Bible app on your phone, it probably is youversion. Or if not, just check Bible.com and then you'll see whether or not you have an account with the YouVersion app. And I've been a content provider for YouVersion since last year, but we didn't have that many resources. We've already released, as I'm recording, one devotional, the Creator's Craft. But now we are going to have the Creator's purpose, a model for creative work. And as I'm recording, it's probably already available. So I'm so excited about this because this comes back to what I really feel guiding gigs is trying to help you do, to connect the dots between your spiritual life and your creative life. And if you understand God has a purpose behind his creation, not just to show off, which he's perfectly capable and he is worthy of doing. He also had a purpose for us to understand. He gave us so many clues in his word about the why behind his creation. And if we understand God's why, well, now our why becomes so much more easy to understand and to comprehend and then to act upon. My friend. You see, even as I'm talking about this particular reading plan in the YouVersion app, I'm really speaking to the heart of what you are as a creator. I want you to understand that there's a deeper level than just getting things out there, than just creating for the sake of creating. I think we need to know that there's a purpose behind our creative work, our creative gifts, and it comes from God himself. This is why I think it's so important for us to know and understand God's creative purpose. And if you haven't really explored that, well, I'm inviting you to check out our reading plan on youversion. It's probably already available as I'm recording this and as you're listening. So go ahead and check out Bible.com. you can always go to our page in YouVersion and all of those links are in the show notes, and you can jump in and join this reading plan. As a matter of fact, we're actually going to be inviting some of our community to read it together as a group because the Bible app, the YouVersion app, allows you to do these group readings where you can invite your friends to read along with you. As you can see, my friends, this is super, super important that you know why you create, who created you to create and understand the purpose behind your creations. And if you take a closer look at the fact that God mapped all this out, not just for his benefit, but for yours, you're going to find so much more fulfillment in everything you do. And that burnout, that lack of inspiration starts to get less and less of an issue when you truly know who gave you the gift, how he wants you to use it, and the purpose behind your gift. Well, my friend, I hope I've laid this out well for you so that you have this instant understanding that, hey, there's something more to this and I can understand it. I definitely invite you to check out the youe Version Bible Reading app and make sure that you check out the Creator's Purpose A Model for Creative Work. Once again, the link is in our show notes and I would definitely invite those of you who hear this when we are reading this together to jump in. That link will also be in where you can join our reading plan and I'll send you some links so that you can jump in with us as we read as a community. Well, my friend, until next time, continue to become the creative that you were created to be. God bless and I'll see you next episode.