Creating in, through, and for Love

 

Hello friends,

I have been asked by my Studies in Writing professor to answer the question of how to define success in terms of my writing. In order to do that, I think I first must define the purpose of my writing.

Who is my writing for? What is my writing for?

I am currently reading Art and Faith by Mokoto Fujimura for my theatre ministry class. (More on my experience with this book and class to come, I'm sure, because I am feeling enraptured by these conversations about the interaction of art and faith in my life.)

All that to say, today we spent over an hour talking about this quote from the book:  

“our Creator gives us a mandate, despite our brokenness: to create in, through, and for love.”

If God is love, then this statement is saying I am commanded to create in, through, and for God.

In my art, my writing and my theatre, this means I am creating IN the presence of God.

I am creating THROUGH God by creating with the materials God has given me. I am partaking in His creation as I craft words or action. Pope John Paul II wrote in his letter to artists in 1999 about the differentiation between Creator and craftsman. He said that God creates being, something from nothing. Everything we create comes from the material created by God. We get to engage with his creation as image bearers of Christ in our creativity.

Finally, I get to create FOR Love, or FOR God, by making my work an act of worship and prayer to God. I act and I write as an act of love for Christ. To honor and glorify Him.

I believe above all else I am called to love God and love others. Therefore if I am creating in my brokenness for love, I am creating as a way to love my community and therefore also love God.

This brokenness aspect of this quote is also really powerful.

I am called, and commanded, to create in my brokenness. I've been reading in Corinthians in which Paul says how God uses our weaknesses and imperfections to reveal His glory, so that we can not boast. If I screw up and say or do the wrong thing, it only further reveals the power and greatness of God in how he can use the brokenness of my words and actions.

In 2 Corinthians Paul says "Christ's power is made perfect in our weakness."

Holy cow. How humbling, right? And how amazing!! My weakness. My brokenness is used by God, in His love, to reveal His glory and goodness to others.

God uses brokenness.

God's glory and love is revealed in brokenness.

So...if I am called to create and love in my brokenness, because I know God's love is being poured into me and His glory shining through my broken parts, then how do I define my success as a writer?

Well, Paul says " I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. " (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)

This verse strikes me-- because if Paul claims to have lacked the right words to say, I certainly am at a bottomless pit of lack and falling short in my words. 

The beauty is in how God shapes my words and my writing. How HE uses my lack to bring beauty and reveal Himself to me. 

If God uses weakness. If God uses poor speech and a lack of poetic, artful, persuasive words, then I don't think the success of my writing can be defined by how "good" the writing is. How powerful and clear and full of literary devices it is. 

Sometimes my writing is going to be shitty. 

Sometimes it is going to be a rambly journal entry crying about my failures. 

Sometimes it is going to be a rough draft that will never see the light of day.

Sometimes it is going to be an angry monologue I furiously write, in which I encounter God in my brokenness and anger. 

God can still use it.

If I am called to write in brokenness, then my writing's success can not be from a place of holistic perfection (which is wildly unattainable anyway).

Knowing the purpose of my writing is to glorify God, to love Him and love others, then my writing is successful when it is written in, through and for God. He is the greatest and highest Love. 

I want to seek to love God and love others in my writing. To practice noticing the presence of God as I create. To write from a place of abounding love for writing and for the people who will read it. And above all, to write from a place of loving God and how writing can draw me near to Him. 

In doing that...in practicing that...and in shifting my perspective of writing, theatre making, and creating to be about engaging in His love...then my writing is successful. 

Sincerely, 

Sophi :)