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| The Lost Art Of Creativity; Ref: Paul Keith Davis et al | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 26 2008, 03:22 PM (148 Views) | |
| Stace | Feb 26 2008, 03:22 PM Post #1 |
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THE LOST ART OF CREATIVITY ~by JoAnn McFatter A bit of a play on words, granted, but tragically real is this state of affairs. Unfortunately, we as Christians have let that part of us die or, at the very least, lie dormant and/or suppressed in the recesses of who we are. We've forgotten in Who's Image we are created - the Creator, Himself ! So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.' Genesis 1:27 Men and women alike are born with genuine creativity in our DNA from the very beginning. Children are very creative, as we have all observed. It takes a few years for us to beat it down into submission, never to be seen again for some of us. Studies have been done with children, following them through their school years and testing them every couple of years. At the beginning age of 2 and 3 they ALL test out creative genius, but by the age of 18 only 1% remains in that category. Again, our Greek minded school system has squeezed our natural, God-given creative tendencies right out of us to cause us to fit a mold that somebody somewhere decided was the norm. The day we are born from our mother's womb, we are just 9 months separated from having been with God in the Spirit so that experience is still fresh in us. The memory of it is slowly drawn from us by the ideas and thoughts of an earthly realm that are presented to us by well intentioned people. None the less, the understanding we had is suffocated and the voice of God is smothered. These days creativity truly is a lost art. I wanted to bring our attention to the influence this has had on our ability to grasp the supernatural, to even have faith for believing. We live in a "need to see it to believe it" society. Sometimes we don't even believe when we see because we've been tricked too many times and we find it difficult to trust. Of course I believe in testing the spirits, as we are told to do in scripture, but that is not what I'm referring to here. In the Christian world we have been told to stay away from fantasy, which I agree with, but we've stayed SO far away that we've lost our ability to even receive a thought from God in our mind's eye, our imagination. Imagination does not have to be a bad thing. It can be used for good or evil just as any other ability we have. David says, I know also, my God, that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of mine heart I have willingly offered all these things: and now have I seen with joy thy people, which are present here, to offer willingly unto thee. O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare their heart unto thee. 1 Chron. 29:17-18 Our imagination is engaged in faith for the supernatural. Are we going to believe for that thing we cannot yet see? Are we going to imagine that thing we are pressing into with faith, believing? Our faith causes an image to form in our imagination. We come into agreement with God and He causes our imagination to see what He says is real. It is something yet to be, at least in the physical realm, though in God's mind it already is. To be or not to be, truly is the question being posed to us by faith, itself! We can agree with what God is telling/showing us, and thereby co-labor with Him to bring it to pass. When we speak of imagination, we speak of the future as in something we are getting an image of, that has not yet taken shape or form in this physical realm. If it already has, then it is considered knowledge. It's already a done deal. If it has not occurred, not yet taken shape, it still lies within the imagination. Images that we hope will move from the realm of possibility to the physical reality, having substance, but is still waiting in the future. Just as knowledge speaks of the past, revelation speaks of the present - the now - something being realized at this moment. Once it is realized it becomes knowledge; the three stages being knowledge, (past), revelation (present), and imagination, (future). But it takes agreeing with the thing as God sees it in our own imagination to believe for a thing. In fact, I think you could say it takes imagination to please God! As bold as this may sound, scripture is telling us just that…. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. " Hebrews 11:1 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for He who comes to God must believe that He is, and is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. " Hebrews 11:6 If you hope for something it is not yet seen, so you can only imagine it in your mind as you agree with what the Spirit of God is inspiring you toward. In exercising your faith for it, you will see the substance of it within your mind and spirit before it takes form in the physical realm. You agree with it in the Spirit before it takes place in the natural. We participate in bringing something forth as a co-laborer with God. We help to give it substance in this 'touch it, feel it' realm we live in just by coming into agreement with what we are seeing. It happens as we give ourselves to the revelation He is releasing to us. Yes, God is the only One Who can create on His own, without any assistance, but He has invited us - and it pleases Him, evidently - to have us join with Him in this endeavor. He says, That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun " Ecclesiastes 1:9 Anything that has been or will be is already in Him. It's just that some of it has been given substance, as is the above scripture references, and some of it has not - as of yet. But He tells us it will be……. Behold, I will do a new thing. Now it shall spring forth. Shall you not know it? …… Isaiah 43:19 He even goes so far as to tell us that we cannot even imagine what is locked up in His heart for us to enter into with Him. It remains only in His understanding, as of yet. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those that love Him. I Corinthians 2:9 He has invited us to participate with Him in all of this and is just waiting to release the new to us and through us. Our problem is that we are so prone to taking a God inspired idea or thought, sifting it through our own limited mindsets, and turning it right back into an old familiar thing. It's the typical, "starting out in the Spirit and ending up in the flesh" syndrome that we so easily fall into. We aren't opening ourselves, or our imaginations, to His revelation as it comes to us. Instead, we reshape it within OUR understanding, instead of just believing and agreeing with exactly what He has said. If we just let the Word of God permeate our imagination and would come into agreement with THAT, we would see so much more. God, help us all to open up what is left of our shriveled up imaginations to be filled with the Rhema of Your creative Word! We've shied away from it for so long. But we are at the dawning of an age of creativity such as we've never seen before, for it will be Holy Spirit driven. God wants to overshadow us with that God-seed idea. His treasury room in Heaven is FULL, waiting to be accessed by you! Paul Keith Davis has a fantastic teaching on this room in Heaven - he's seen it with his own eyes! There are so many different things such as books, paintings, inventions, architecture, business strategies, patents, music - the list goes on and on - just waiting for ones who will open their mind and spirits to receive it from Him. The creativity is above all that we have seen or heard up to this point in history. He's saved the best til last - or maybe it just took us this long to be able to tap into what He has wanted to release all along. Either way, it's there for us now. It's a 'stretch out your tent pegs' moment in time. Allow your imagination to be filled with the creativity of God that was in us in the very beginning, before we got reprogrammed by man. That is the invitation to us all - to stand with God and allow Him to hover over us with His Divine Imagination, imparting to and igniting our imagination in order that we might give substance to what is in the mind of God. Even that we might give substance here on earth to something that is in that treasury room in Heaven. I was talking 10 years ago about the Spirit Renaissance that I saw coming. There are tokens out there of it, such as Akiane the young painter/poet/musician, but I believe there is to be a manifestation of this creativity in the masses, just as it has been spoken of relating to the supernatural. Become one with Him to allow that flow to be released. Your access to it all is through your relationship with Him. He wants to release through you as this last surge of creativity is released upon the earth! Can you just imagine it? Now - imagine yourself right in the middle of it!! ------------------ Akiane Kramarik is a young prodigy from Sandpoint, Idaho, who has been drawing and painting lifelike artwork since she was 4. Akiane (pronounced ah-KEE-ah-nah) says she first met God when she was 3. And now she's hoping to use her amazing gift to help feed needy children around the world. When young Akiane's special gift was discovered, not much time passed before the humble 10-year-old was featured on Oprah, CNN, and other national media programs. Akiane began working in pastels when she was 5, and completed her first painting at 7. The self-portrait she painted sold for $10,000. "It wasn't just art that was happening. Simultaneous with art was a spiritual awakening," says Akiane's mother, Forelli Kramarik. "It all began to happen when she started to share her dreams and visions."Prior to that time, Forelli had been raised as an unbeliever, in an atheistic family from Lithuania."And my husband was a former Catholic and did not share in the family beliefs. We didn't pray together, there was no discussion about God, and we didn't go to church. Then all of a sudden, Akiane was starting to talk about God." Forelli's young daughter was homeschooled, she had no babysitters, and the family watched no television."We were with the kids all the time, and so these words from Akiane about God didn't come from the outside—we knew that. But there suddenly were intense conversations about God's love, His place [in our lives], and she would describe everything in detail." In the beginning, Akiane drew pictures of family members and pets, but her interests eventually shifted to the creation of faces. She started "scribbling" more and more faces. She tries to recreate visions that she says God gives her in her dreams. "I wake up after I have had many dreams. I wake up and I pray, and then I see visions and I explain all those to my mom, and I say, 'This is what I want to paint.' And my mom says, 'I'll give you a canvass so you can paint it.'"From her dreams Akiane began to compose what she calls the "Jesus" paintings, which took her more than 75 hours to complete. She has so far painted two oils of Jesus. She calls the first one "The Prince of Peace," and the second is titled "Forgive Them, Father." "I always think about Jesus and talk about Him," she says. "I was looking for a [Jesus] model for a long, long time, and when I couldn't find anyone, one day I suggested to my family to pray all day for this model so God would send the right one." The day that they prayed, a very tall carpenter—yes, a carpenter—came to their door looking for work. When he showed up, Akiane nearly fainted. "I told my mother that that was him. I want him to be my model," she recalls. The carpenter agreed to it at first, but he called a week later to back out. Akiane Kramarik "He said that he wasn't worthy to represent his Master," Akiane says. "He's a Christian, and he's a humble person. But I prayed that God would change his mind and that he would call back." And the mysterious carpenter, who wished to remain anonymous, did call Akiane back, saying that God wanted him to pose for the painting, although he felt it was unusual. Akiane took pictures, studied his face, made sketches, used her imagination and photo references, and the result was the "Prince of Peace." Akiane's day is a little different from other children her age who are homeschooled. When she wakes each morning she has a drink of water, exercises, prays, and then she paints. "And after I paint, I write poetry," Akiane adds. "And I write Russian, and then I write and read Lithuanian, after which I read the Bible." When asked how she knows that it's God who is speaking to her, she replies, "Because I can hear His voice. His voice is quiet and beautiful." Although she was 3 at the time, she'll always remember God's first message to her. "He said, 'You have to do this, and I'll help you.' He said, 'Now you can help people.' I said, 'Yes, I will.' But I said it in different words in my mind. I speak through my mind to Him." Akiane also has another dream that she believes God has given her—only this one is one that she dreams during her waking hours."I really want to help needy people in Africa and other places," she says. "Especially the Lithuanian people—the 'garbage children' is what they are called. They live in the garbage, and 2- and 3-year-olds are being killed for the first place in the food line," she says. "Lithuania has the highest suicide rate in the world. They need help with food and medicine, and a free hospital. I really want to build a free hospital for them." Akiane hopes to fund such projects with the sale of her paintings and poetry. According to her agent, Akiane soon will embark on a world tour to raise money for the African AIDS crisis. "We don't have an answer as to why this is happening. We don't have a clue," Forelli Kramarik says about her daughter's unfolding ministry. "We're just thankful to God." But Akiane does seem to have an answer. When her mother asks her why she thinks she received her gift, the 10-year-old replies: "I have been blessed by God. And if I'm blessed, there is one reason and one reason only, and that is to help others." |
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6:53 AM Nov 23
