I was flipping through one of my notebooks and found a quote from my friend Daniel from March of last year (although he claims he has no remembrance of writing it!). I thought I would share it here with you.
“Let me make this suggestion, to you and to myself. Let’s apologize less and create more. Let’s think of creating for the approval of others less, and for the pleasure of God more. Think of the little girl who draws a picture for her mother. She uses crayons to compose crude stick figures – a blue person, a red car, a green and brown tree, a purple house, a yellow sun with squiggly lines radiating out from it. And what does her mother do? Critique it? No, she uses magnets to display it on the refrigerator, where it may stay until the girl graduates from high school. What if God is more like that mother than the critics we fear? What could give our Creator more pleasure than our creative offerings.” -Daniel Rogers
So here’s to using the talents God gave you. Not worrying about whether other people will like it, but using them to glorify God, whatever that looks like for your particular talent. Doing our best, and letting our best be enough, for God gave us our talents and He knows what we are capable of, and it pleases Him when we use them. Whether it’s a drawing of a stick figure or a Van Gogh-esque masterpiece. Humming a simple tune or orchestrating a symphony. Writing a thank you note or composing a novel. Building a sand castle or engineering a skyscraper. What ever it is, just do it. God is waiting to see what you create for Him.
