Look! A flag!

I have two year old son and he loves the American Flag. He notices every time we pass one and he really likes the big ones. It is not just any flag that he notices, it is specifically "Old Glory."

I like that.

He may be two years old and has no idea what the American Flag stands for but he realizes it is special and takes notice of it. How often do we pass a flag and forget that is even there? I realize this may have been a post better suited for the 4th of July, and I don't really want this blog to turn political, but this thought just struck me as we were driving down town to go to lunch. I am glad my son likes the American flag. I want him to grow up and realize what a privilege we have to live in America. When he gets older we are going to take him to Washington D.C. to see all the monuments and museums, and teach about what this country was founded on.

Which brings me to another thought. We are in the middle of a video series at our church by John Bevere, entitled "Honor's Reward." (it is a great book that I would highly recommend to anyone) In this last session he spoke about honor toward public officials and the difference between Democratic thinking and Kingdom thinking. As a democratic society I think we have lost almost all understanding of what it is to honor. I don't know what is going to happen in the upcoming election, but I do realize that I need to find and understand what it really means to honor, even when we would think someone is not worthy of it. I want to do it to honor God, but I also want to do it so that my son will grow up still loving the American Flag and knowing that because we live in a place with freedom, we are all the more responsible to honor, not because we are made to, but because we choose to.

From the Abundance

I think people are sometimes adverse to thinking creatively, or to using their imaginations because we are scared. We are scared because we are not exactly sure what is going to come out. In many ways this is the essence of the creative process, because if we knew the ultimate out come, exactly as it would be, it would negate most of the aspects of creativity that make it...well... creative. We could all just write "Concertos for Dummies" books and everyone could be a masterful genius. But because uncertainty is at the heart of creativity, it can either become the catalyst for something great, or it can cause the downfall of both the art and the artist. And that scares lots of people. Especially Christians with creative inklings.

"What if my painting somehow ends up not being pleasing to God?" "If I make things that are relevant to the world, they won't have a place in the church." "How can I give myself to something that requires so much of me and not become self-consumed?"

The answer lies in the heart. The bible tells us that "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." I think too often we read this verse and think of all the movies with bad words that we have ever seen and just know that someday one of those words is going to slip out of my mouth and I am going to go to hell. Well, it probably does mean something like that, but I believe it works the opposite way as well. If we devote ourselves to continually desiring to please God and to be close to Him, filling our minds and hearts with His words, than what comes out of our mouths, or in our actions, or in what we create, will be birthed out of what we love. Instead of worrying so much about what is going to come out of our imaginations, we need to spend our time thinking about what is going into our imaginations.