Made To Be The Things That He Is

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.”

—Genesis 1:26

I was on iTunes making a playlist the other day, looking for inspiration anywhere I could find it, and as I scrolled through all the options, I felt like I hadn’t heard of practically any of the bands. And I thought to myself, how many bands are there? How many bands does the world need?

Yikes. That’s the wrong question, the worst ever, most art-killing question there is. So much of life, really, comes down to asking the wrong questions. This is the thing about art: it’s not about market demand. It’s not like trying to figure out if this town needs another grocery store or dry cleaner. The general world population will survive without one more stage production and one more gallery showing.

This is the thing, though: you might not. We create because we were made to create, having been made in the image of God, whose first role was Creator. He was and is a million different things, but in the beginning, he was a creator. We were made to be the things that he is: forgivers, redeemers, second chance-givers, truth-tellers, hope-bringers. And we were certainly, absolutely, made to be creators.