Are Your Antennas Up?

Did you know that craft is not the only skill we have to develop as creatives to make good, true, and beautiful things that honor God?

We live in a Christian culture that can tend toward elevating personal growth over the ways and heart of Christ.

The Church has its own version of hustle culture. We can’t fall into that trap.

What you look at with your heart will be the nature of the things that you produce.

Your eyes, ears, and words are all three doorways into your imagination. Protect those doors by first guarding them and second feeding them with the good, the true, and the beautiful—innocent, pure, and holy things that please the heart of Christ. The world is broken and fallen, and though it is filled with evil, the eyes of our hearts were never meant to gaze upon it. Ask yourself the question: Who and what am I gazing at with the meditation of my heart?

Craft and skill are not the only things needed to make something that moves people. You also need depth. Depth of life lived in God.

In Christ there is a way, by His grace, to be both wise as a serpent and yet innocent as a dove. The jaded spirit can rebuke, but it can never wonder like a child. There is a place in Christ, when we give Him the meditation of our heart, where we can both look upon the brokenness we see, work with the Spirit of God to repair the Body of Christ, and at the same time be filled with childlike wonder and optimism about the future inheritance we have in Him.feast.

Scriptures for Study

Luke 11:33–36

[33] “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. [34] Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. [35] Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. [36] If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”

Philippians 4:4–9

[4] Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. [5] Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; [6] do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. [7] And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

[8] Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. [9] What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

John 10:1–3

I Am the Good Shepherd

[1] “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. [2] But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. [3] To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

Deuteronomy 6:4–15

[4] “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. [5] You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. [6] And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. [7] You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. [8] You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. [9] You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

[10] “And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, [11] and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, [12] then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. [13] It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by His name you shall swear. [14] You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you—[15] for the LORD your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the LORD your God be kindled against you, and He destroy you from off the face of the earth.

Closing Thoughts

When we make a heavenly habit of cultivating a holy contemplative life, then we begin to allow the Spirit of God to dig deep into the soil of our hearts so that the fruit of our imagination is beautiful and becomes a tree for others to eat from.

Inspiration can only draw water from whatever depth the well has already been dug. If the well is shallow, inspiration can only produce shallow things from shallow waters. But if it is deep in surrender, deep in purity, deep in obedience, and deep in pursuit of Christ, then it can draw deep waters that quench the thirst of searching souls.

What you meditate on determines the depth of what you make. Anyone can make something that’s catchy or amusing. But it takes the pain of life, surrender, and suffering to produce depth. Those ones, when they make something, it doesn’t amuse people—it moves people.

Let’s take back our contemplative life and bring it under the Lordship of Christ, that the meditations of His heart would be the banner we come under.

Practical Help

If you know how to worry, you already know how to meditate. Worrying is meditating on Satan’s plan for our life: to steal, kill, and destroy. When we worry, we use our imagination and apply it to a real problem in our life. Then through that meditative gifting of imagination, we agree with Satan’s lie. Then we make that molehill into a mountain. That mountain produces fear. What you meditate on becomes the atmosphere of your thought life. Meditating on the spirit of death produces fear.

To meditate on the Word of God is simple: you take one or a few promises in the Word of God that apply to the real problem you're facing. Using your imagination and the Word of God, you agree with the promise in Scripture. And you think on it, sing it, say it, write it, and have a conversation with the Lord about it.

Example

Financial Stress.

Instead of worrying and spinning out:

“Lord, I know this financial problem is real. Normally I would spend my whole day worrying about this and not even knowing that I'm agreeing with the enemy. But I thank You that in Matthew 6:25–34 You say that You are the same God who not only made the whole world but sustains even the little things like the birds of the air or the lilies in a field. If Your love is so great that it feeds birds and clothes flowers, then of course You will provide for me. I am Your child made in Your image, and I trust You today.”

While we are on this journey of growing in the craft the Lord has called us to, do not forget that we also must grow in depth.