Re-creative Thinking
By Nathan Metz, UgandaJuly-September 2014
One of my favorite classes in high school was creative writing. I loved the freedom of putting anything I wanted onto the page. It brought me happiness to express myself in a way that others might be able to feel enjoyment and inspiration. I’m living that class again now through my children. Often they will hand me some small work of art or piece of writing that shows creative expression. They didn’t have to be told how to create and express; they just did it. It seems that creativity is woven right into the fabric of humanity.
Recently one of my daughters came running into the room in tears with a flapping shred of construction paper crunched in her tiny hand. Before I could speak, she wailed, “I made this for you and she destroyed it!” She thrust her pointer finger at the doorway where her baby sister had waddled up, holding what appeared to be the missing portions of construction paper. I took the tattered gift and folded its edges back to create a slightly more presentable work of art. She smiled.
Creation is amazing. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth using nothing but His voice. Out of a vast nothingness there was a creation of space and time, heaven and earth, planets, bugs, carbon, and ice. We Christians admire this opening Genesis story for good reason. God’s creation is amazing. So is His re-creation.
Just like my daughter’s art project, there was a destruction that tampered with the creative expression. God made us and we chose to sin. Creation was torn and tattered. The Old Testament tells the story of a torn creation repeatedly running back to the Creator for mending. With an unfailing and unceasing redemptive plan, God responded to the tears of His people and sent His only Son. Jesus came to re-create.
When a human responds to the wooing of the Holy Spirit by believing in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, there becomes a doorway swung wide for God to enter in. The Holy Spirit enters into that human and reworks/re-creates/regenerates. This re-creating in the human is no less impressive than the first creation. We marvel at the Genesis story. We are fascinated with the birth of a child. Yet what a miracle it is that God could redeem a sinner! The One who has created all maintains the power to re-create all.
Our life’s work is not driven by a desire to merely make the most of what we have. We are liberated from an imprisonment to that which is fallen. God does not just fold back the tattered edges of sinfulness to create something slightly more presentable in us. He remakes us and gives us the freedom of re-creative thinking; something far more grand than just repairing and patching what has been destroyed. The power of God to regenerate a person is the hope that we let shine from the hilltops. Our God is a re-creative thinker!
ACT: Let’s dig a little deeper into the Word. Take time this week to meditate on Titus 3:3-7.
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