This post is part of the Poured Forth Blog Post Series: 1 2 3 4 [5] 6 7 8 9
Poured Forth is also available as a book: Poured Forth
For the next post, I’ll need you to get out a piece of paper or open a new document online. At the top, please list everything that you’ve created that explicitly glorifies God in any way. I’m not talking about car manuals or technical drawings you did for work, only anything that you created that you consider to be explicitly dedicated to glorifying God. You decide what goes on the list. If you don’t want to take the time to list everything, pick your five creations you are most proud of.
If you are a musician, you need to include all the songs you wrote or pieces you composed that explicitly glorify God. Include any arrangements you made of hymn tunes or Christmas carols. Put those songs or pieces that have had the most success—the ones you’ve earned the most money from, the ones that have given you the most performances or exposure—at the very top of the list.
Poets should list their poems, starting with the poetry that was the hardest for you to write or that came on like a lightning bolt of pure inspiration. You know the poems I mean: the ones you love so much that you recall lines from them at odd times when you least expect it.
Painters and photographers should include all the images you believe glorify God by reflecting His creation in the most inspiring way. Your list should be topped by that picture or painting you got because you were in the exact right place at the exact right time for the Lord to show you something beautiful or powerful. If it is one you refined in post-production for months and months to get just right, that’s even better.
Pastors, please list all the messages you’ve shared with your church over the years. Put your very best sermon series—that one God used to fill the front of your church with people meeting Jesus—at the very top. If you have your sermons online, list the one with the most views or downloads first.
Authors who publish about Christian topics should put those things on the list also. This includes Bible studies, blogs, social media, Christian books, commentaries, or biblical studies or biblical languages textbooks.
If you are in academia and your academic work explicitly glorifies the Lord, put that on your list. This includes all the articles and research you’ve done that teach about spiritual things or the Bible or glorify the Lord in any way. Your thesis and your dissertation (if you have one) go at the very top of the list. That’s right: the thesis or dissertation you spent so many years on, that your spouse worked extra to allow you to finish, that you stayed away from your kids late at night in the library to research, that you had to redo at the last minute because your major professor demanded a change, that you worked on for 36 hours straight then drove an hour to submit on time—that needs to go at the very top of your list.
Next, I need you to write up a contract underneath your list. The terms are as follows:
You will grant to me all rights to every item on your list. You are granting to me an irrevocable, permanent, total right to use everything on your list any way I want to, including the right to give away for free, sell for a profit, make new versions, publish in any format, and make new works using all your ideas. This contract will be valid in all states and jurisdictions, including all countries of the world. I will receive these rights without having to pay you for them, and I am not required to give you credit for your work, acknowledge that it came from you, or share any of my royalties with you. Underneath the contract, sign your name. Then send it to me via my website.
Do I have your attention yet? Did your heart go up in your throat, even though you figured out at some point that I wasn’t entirely serious? Did you feel your temperature increase? Were you irritated or angry I was even saying these things?
Those feelings you felt reflect an underlying reality. Your most valuable earthly possession is not your car or your phone or your money or your house or even your retirement account.
Your most valuable earthly possession is your life’s creative output.
You may have heard of a principle called “the law of supply and demand.” Basically the idea is this: the more of something there is, the easier it is to get, the less expensive it is. The less of something there is, the harder it is to get, the more expensive it is. Rare things cost a lot; common things are cheap. Dirt is everywhere; diamonds are rare.
Nobody else has created the things you created. Nobody else can paint quite like you can, or write poetry quite like you can, or craft sermon messages quite like you can. By definition, if you wrote a thesis or dissertation, yours is the only one in the world that covers your topic the way that you did. Otherwise you would never have earned your degree.
The creative capacity God gave you is singular. That is why your gut instincts are true: the things you have created that glorify God really are your most valuable earthly possessions.
Have you ever thought about what it might be like to give them away? To fully and completely release them, without reservation or any ability to maintain control? To release them not in a theoretical or spiritual sense, but in an actual, practical sense in this present physical world? What might happen if God offered you that privilege and you accepted the offer?
Interlude 3: King David the Psalmist
King David of Israel shaped the history of worship through his psalms, and his artistic influence continues to shape worship today. David was also incredibly generous.
In 2 Samuel 24, there’s a fascinating story illustrating David’s approach to giving. In a moment of weakness, David ordered his military commander to count up all the military assets of Israel. For David, this became a sin. By counting his military he was trusting in human strength rather than in the Lord.
The Lord commanded an angel to send a plague on Israel, and 70,000 people died. When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem, the Lord relented and stopped the plague at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. The prophet Gad told David to build an altar there.
When David told Araunah that the Lord had commanded him to build an altar on Araunah’s threshing floor, Araunah offered to give David the threshing floor and even provide wood and oxen for the sacrifice. David’s reply is perhaps one of the most profound statements on giving ever:
“No,” replied the king, “I insist on paying a price, for I will not offer to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”
— 2 Samuel 24:24, BSB
So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen with his own silver. He insisted on paying a price. Then he offered the sacrifices the Lord had commanded.
This post is part of the Poured Forth Blog Post Series: 1 2 3 4 [5] 6 7 8 9
Poured Forth is also available as a book: Poured Forth
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