Elisabeth Adams

Note: This article was originally published on Boundless.org, and was later removed from their website during reorganization.

The car is parked, and I am in the passenger seat: nose to nose with a Volvo – and eye to eye with the computer screen on my lap. I’ve already chatted with Israel, Korea, England and Texas this morning, but there’s no chance of that now. My wireless connection is miles away, and it’s time to write an article. If I can still all the noise in my head.

Forget writer’s block: I think I have a full-fledged case of creativity deficit.

Have you noticed that the older you get, the more you’re expected to produce?  For me, it’s articles. Writing advice.  Lesson plans. Progress assessments. Activities for our small group. Specific encouragement for friends. Ways to honor my leaders. Words to share God’s glory. Solutions when I’ve miscommunicated – again. Political opinions. Spiritual convictions. And something to eat for dinner tonight.

My friend Alison, a mother of six, says it well: “I love everything I do. There’s just so much of it.”

On good days, I’m stimulated, fascinated, and fulfilled by all the callings God has placed in my life. On bad days, I’m discouraged, overwhelmed, and downright dry.

Some folks amaze me: they wake up in the morning, drink their coffee, and sit down to create. Out of their minds come skyscrapers and symphonies, poems and paintings, clothing styles, chemical formulas, computer programs, entirely new flavor combinations, and whole imaginary worlds. With God-like creativity, they bring something out of nothing, day after day after day.  To an outside observer the creative process seems little short of miraculous. Notes, lines, hues, flavors, formulas, and codes; characters, quatrains, and the very keystrokes I’m using this moment: where does it all come from?

Remember Bezelel? God tapped him to craft a Tent of Meeting from blue and purple and scarlet fabrics, gold, silver, and bronze, acacia wood, animal skins, and precious stones. He called him to complete the combined tasks of carpenter and seamstress, embroiderer and engraver, jeweler and tentmaker. And then He gave him the skill to do so.

Remember Solomon? Not only was he famed for his wisdom, but he was a prolific author: fifteen hundred songs (a whole shelf of hymnals) and three thousand proverbs (the best-selling advice column of his day).  Solomon was frank about the work involved in making so many books: collecting sayings that would goad his readers into wise behavior, weighing them, arranging them, and seeking out the most delightful turn of phrase. He was equally frank about the source of his words: “They are given by one Shepherd.”

That word-giving Shepherd, that skill-bestowing Designer is my Creator Himself, the One who promised never to leave me. So what’s up with the writer’s block?  Considering the Resident Expert, why should I ever experience a lapse in creativity?

Jesus spelled it out for me this way:

 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.[1]

Abide, says my Strong’s Concordance, is an action: “to stay (in a given place, state, relation or expectancy),” to “continue, dwell, endure, be present, remain, stand, tarry.”

This isn’t a quick refueling stop; it’s a lifestyle. It’s not a task to be accomplished, but a relationship to be nurtured, day after day after day. In fact, I can’t separate the well-being of my creative life from my mental, physical, and spiritual health – and I’m glad it’s that way. Each deadline reminds me afresh that I need to abide in the Vine.

But what in the world does that look like? What does it mean in practical terms to nurture the creative life?

• Ask. God likes to create through me; He also likes to be asked. And not as a last-minute addition to the project, but the senior member: His projects, His power, His glory. And His responsibility. If I abide in the Vine, there will be fruit. It might not be the fruit I expected, but it will be His, and it will be to His glory.  If I don’t make this deadline, His glory continues unruffled and unimpeded. That’s a humbling – and restful – place to be.
• Eat well. Nourish your spirit and your imagination. Think about Olympic athletes: because they demand so much from their bodies, they are rigorously choosy about their intake. This doesn’t mean you’re limited to high-brow literature: just literature with real content, whether that be fantasy, humor, history, philosophy, botany, or the Bible itself. Read broadly. Cultivate a sense of curiosity. Investigate new skills. Listen to good music. Notice nature. Look at art. Surround yourself with people who love to learn. And ask lots and lots of questions.
• Exercise. Recently, I visited the website of an artist who paints a fifteen-minute sketch every day, and it got me thinking. Theoretically, I neglect blogging, letter-writing, and journaling because I am hard at the work of planning an article. (Or fulfilling other responsibilities. Or resting. Or earnestly procrastinating, as the case may be). But to neglect daily practice is about as sensible as running a marathon just once every month, and saving up my energies the rest of the time.
• Be disciplined. Know what gets you into the creative groove – perhaps freewriting, brainstorming, walking, or working with your hands – and make it part of your routine. Finding inspiration is a lot like fishing. Go where the ideas are likely to be, and stick around for a while. It’s no use complaining that the fish aren’t biting, if you’re not down at the shore with your line in the water.
• Be flexible. Ideas don’t necessarily come when you want them. There may be times when you put in long hours of work while inspiration is burning. And other times when you are in a holding pattern. Learn to ask “What can I do?” Make use of the waiting times to clear the decks for action when it comes. But beware of activities that suck you in and actually prevent you from arriving at a creative frame of mind: things like internet, TV, mindless conversation – or even organizing every corner of your room.
• Be still. Ideas need a dark, hidden period in order to grow. Life will doesn’t provide pockets of quiet: you have to schedule it in – daily, weekly, season by season, for the rest of your life. Whether actual or mental, get rid of background noise. Meditate. Think. Pray. Talk things over with God, and listen to what He says.

And finally: just do it.

If I were reading this article instead of writing it, this is where I’d break in. “Wait!” I’d say. “Sometimes I just can’t do it!” I’m the one who has to go to a parking lot to escape distraction, remember? The one who once – in a last-ditch attempt to focus on a college essay – parked herself on the cellar stairs. With the door closed. And the lights off.

Recently, I ran away from my writing just long enough to visit a few used bookstores. Among my finds was a paperback called Write to the Point, which honed right in on the mystery of the creative process:

By learning how the Conspicuous Writers put words on paper (is there anything special about the paper? what color is it?), the audience hopes to plug into some of their power…some trick we could learn, some secret. There is no secret. I won’t convince you of this, except intellectually, and you already know it. I can’t convince myself. I keep feeling I am going to do something different one day and begin writing stuff that will make people hold their foreheads in amazement.

But here is the truth:

Conspicuous Writers write their sentences the way you and I do – one word after the other.[2]

The chances are very good that you engage in some creative activity that baffles those around you.  (If it’s lesson plans or logarithms, social events or sanitation that you’re brainstorming, then I am definitely one of your admirers). No matter how nothingish it seems to you, I am certain you are called to something. You have some story to grow, tell, paint, act, build, sing, shout, or sculpt; some aspect of God’s character to teach, show, and live. No one else can do it. You might as well do it badly, if necessary. And you might as well begin now.

There’s no secret: just work.

Just work – and your Creator.

For novelist Elizabeth George, showing up to write every day is an act of faith. Faith that God gave her talent. Faith that if she can imagine a book, she can finish it, one sentence at a time. [3]

For me, placing my fingers on the keyboard at this moment is an act of faith. Not that I will write something that makes people hold their foreheads in amazement. But that God has called me to write this article today. Faith, not in the perfect time (believe me, it never arrives), but in the perfect One. Faith that if I sit down to obey, He will show up with the inspiration.

When I create, I’m not an innovator; I’m an imitator. I’m made in the image of the One who called worlds into being with a word. The One who knit me together in my mother’s womb, giving me blue eyes like my grandfathers’, big knuckles like my dad’s, and a mind that delights in words, words, and more words. The One whose living Word is living inside me now, turning my words into more uses than I will ever have wit to plan. That’s where all the creativity comes from.