Who Do You Create For?

This article is so amazing, and it puts to words the thoughts I have been trying to express for a while. Enjoy :)

"Who do we create for?

We like to picture the lone artist, toiling away in his studio for hours, producing art for art’s sake. It’s cool (kind of) to be the song writer who writes music only for himself and doesn’t sell out to the masses. Stay true to yourself. Stay true to art.

But I don’t really buy that.

Our creative powers come from God. He gave them to us to be used for His purposes. I don’t get to decide what I want to do with my talents. I can’t write music for the music’s sake.

So then why do art? Why take photos? Why organize a room? Why create a spreadsheet? What should be our driving motive?

Isaiah 43:6-8 gives purpose to every project:

I will say to the north, Give up,

and to the south, Do not withhold;

bring wmy sons from afar

and wmy daughters from the end of the earth,

7 everyone who is called by my name,

whom I created for my glory,

whom I formed and made.”

I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.

God is the premier, ultimate artist. He formed me. He animated my body and organized my DNA. And He made me so that I might give Him glory. In other words, I exist on planet Earth to show the greatness of God. Everything I do flows out of that purpose.

My creativity exists to bring honor to God. I don’t create for my honor. I don’t create for the sake of creating. I create for the glory of God. I create to show the greatness of God.

This plays out in a thousand different ways. If you write a piece of great music, and then give thanks to God for the gift of music, that honors God. If you create a spreadsheet with excellence, so that every formula works and no numbers are missing, that brings honor to God. If you organize a room, bringing order to what once was chaos, that honors God.

I can’t spell out all the implications. Each of us is responsible for figuring out how we are to be creative for the glory of God. The point is that we are to create, and it’s to be for God’s glory."

-Article from http://www.theblazingcenter.com/2010/01/on-creativity-part-2.html (written by Stephen Altrogee)

It reminds me of the verse in Corinthians, "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." Everything we create whether it is a song, or a photograph, or a painting, we are supposed to honor and glorify God through it.