Happenings 6 August 2020

I am loving being involved in the SHAPE course. There are around 20 of us on a six-week journey of self-discovery, which is really the discovery of the divine artistry and design that our Creator has fashioned in each one of us. Each week, we sit in the weirdly wonderful place of simultaneously exploring God’s handiwork and being God’s handiwork, as we look at how God has fashioned us for service. Last week we looked at the example of Bezalel; he was a bloke who got given the job of making a meeting place between God and people (the tabernacle), and his job was to make it look beautiful. By himself, he didn’t have the skills he needed for the task, but God wasn’t worried. God’s Spirit worked inside Bezalel to rewire his neurons, give skill to his finger-tips, give vision to his mind, fill the marrow of his bones with a creativity that oozed out through his pores, and allowed Bezalel to become the craftsman that was needed. As I read his brief story, I had the picture of the Master Craftsman (God) mentoring his apprentice (Bezalel) into all the joys and disciplines of creativity, and God wants to do that for us too. Kiwi, Matt Chapman, writes, ‘Creativity is a divine attribute. We are image-bearers of a creative God, so when we create something, we reflect something of the nature of God. Often creativity is misunderstood to be referring only to the work of artistic people, but we are surrounded by creative action. As new cells replace old ones, as new life comes into the world, as accountants create sense and structure around numbers, as chefs create cuisine, as a builder creates a house, as a parent creates order out of a messy bedroom, we were created to be creative beings.’ God calls us to join him in the grand task of re-creating his earth, one act of creativity at a time. How can you create for the glory of God (and the sheer fun of it!) this week?

In Him,
Murray