Earth is our metaphor for creativity. This one is fairly straight forward, but it needs to be said because we often don’t. Often we christians spend most of our time talking about elimination of sin and almost no time releasing God-given potential. Certainly rooting out and eliminating sin is an important part of following Jesus, but is not even nearly the whole story.

Take a moment to consider the world around you. Look out a window if possible. Can it be denied that our God is a creative God? And we are fashioned in the image of this creative God! God breathed into a lump of earth and created humanity. Of course as a result of our own rebellion, we are broken vessels. Too often we make the goal of holiness to somehow get back to an ‘unbroken’ state, which we can’t do. So what is the point of character transformation (wood) then? Well, I think the point is that God has big dreams for you and I. We can’t ‘unbreak’ ourselves, so we must leave that to God, and move on.

There was a time when what people did with their lives was carefully considered as a calling from above. In fact, the very word ‘vocation’ includes this notion. ‘Vocation’ comes to us via the latin ‘vocatio’ which is rooted in ‘vocare’ meaning ‘to call’. Ones vocation was once thought to be a ‘calling’. God has a dream for his people and it’s wrapped up in this understanding of ‘call’. God has uniquely gifted and equipped each of us for our call. Maybe it’s time to reclaim this understanding of our vocation as more than just a way to pay the bills?

There are many forms of creativity. To be a good accountant or financial planner takes creativity, right? Think about what it takes to be good at any given vocation. To be good doctors, lawyers, carpenters, barristas, cab drivers all takes creativity. You see, God has redeemed us for a purpose. God has a dream for us and it’s not just to ‘unbreak’ us. Creativity is the natural result of being formed by and following after a creative God. Together, we are committed to seeing and celebrating the God-given potential in every life. We are committed to embracing and releasing creativity in every form.

Jesus told a story about how our hearts are like earth. In the story the message of the Kingdom of God falls on different kinds of soil. When our hearts are like good soil (when we truly accept God’s message) there is a huge harvest. In other words, when we let God cultivate our hearts into good earth, the potential that lies dormant in each of our hearts is released and the dreams that God has for us come to life. So the question is… In what way has God gifted and ‘called’ you to a great harvest in the Kingdom?