Read with Me: Chapter 2: Creating Isn't Stagnant
Makers Gotta Make
If I were to tell you to name as many hobbies as you could in one minute, chances are a great deal of the hobbies you listed would wind up in the category of The Makers: Those who delight to bring something new into existence. They are the painters, needleworkers, and leathersmiths. They are the 3D printers, model-builders, and welders. They draw, sculpt, and create works of art with the frosting in their piping bag. Of course, they don’t only create the tangible. Sometimes they craft notes to a song, words in a poem, or an entire world in a novel.
These hobbyists became the first title I addressed in Created to Play. In their chapter I cover how Makers image their Father and how the activities grow them both body and soul. Lately, as I think about the Makers, I’ve been thinking about how the drive to create is rarely stagnate. Instead, it bursts with energy, that rushes out into further forms of expression. This is at least my own reality.
In my book, I mentioned my feelings of wonder as I gazed at my first crocheted scarf that once was a ball of yarn. That feeling of awe only grew bigger and stronger, and its current pulled me along into other creative pursuits. If I could make that scarf, could I create something else? Could I, too, learn how to sew a skirt? A Christmas stocking? Could I crochet a stuffed animal? Could I learn how to work with epoxy and make those beautiful waves I saw in the video? Could I write a short story or create a poem that has never existed until I wrote it? The questions tumbled out and pushed me to answer them with hands eager to make something beautiful.
This movement and push is such a sweet gift within the hobbies God has given us, and I think it can remind us of a few things:
We’re headed somewhere
Far from a nihilistic viewpoint, the reality of our lives are about going somewhere. Our life has a direction, a movement to something greater. Theologians call it a telos. We can see the presence of purpose in the very beginning. God told Adam and Eve to work and cultivate the garden—to take what he had made and to be a part of bringing its beauty to fullness. On this side of the fall, we face the temptation to move in the wrong direction, but that doesn’t negate the reality that we were made to move somewhere.
I believe the push we feel to keep creating, to keep making, and to keep showing beauty in new ways through our Making or any hobby exists because it’s fashioned into us. We were made to grow and move towards what’s more and more beautiful as we fill up the world with the glory of the Lord.
We’re learners.
In that same vein, the push to create more reminds of us the way God created us to learn. A week or so ago, in the middle of the bathroom remodel, I joked to my husband how now I was an expert in knowing the different consistencies to mix thin set. Despite the joke, I had discovered an underlying reality: I really love to learn new things. I like learning new skills whether it’s mixing thin set or piping a new kind of buttercream flower. There’s something so satisfying in learning something new and challenging yourself.
This, too, is a gift from our Father who formed us to be learners, and we should embrace it and delight in it. After all, our learning will never end. In Isaiah, God speaks of a time when the house of the Lord is established and our glorious future is realized. Within this future hope, it’s stated that the Lord will teach his people, yet the literal rendering of this verb teach is a future continuous tense- literally “he will be teaching us from his ways” (Isa 2:3).1
All the learning and skills we acquire now are the precursor for a life of learning to delight in the glory of our Lord.
We’ll reap the benefits.
The push to create more as Makers will endow us with multiple benefits in the process. Just as runners benefit from cross training in the pool or on the bike, even Makers can hone their skills by participating in different kinds of crafts. Your time drawing and doodling shores up your skills with an icing bag. Your 3d printing design skills may come into play as you approach your next woodworking project. As one website noted, “[Y]our hobbies aren't isolated pursuits but a constantly communicating ecosystem.” 2 How kind of God to not only form us with the desire to create and learn in many ways, but then to enable all those endeavors to simultaneously grow and form us at the same time.
We could go on talking about all the ways our Making lifts our eyes to our own Maker. I hope those of you reading my book continue the conversation with the people in your own life. How is God teaching each of you through your making? How have you grown in awe of God through your creations? Why do you love to paint, sculpt, or carve? Each thread will give us another shade of beauty, and it will nestle us further into deep awe and gratitude of our God. And that’s the one place we never want to move on from.
Have you grabbed your copy of Created to Play yet? I’d love for you to explore the way God uses our hobbies as avenues for worship. If you have read it, would you consider helping to get the word out by writing a quick review on Amazon or Goodreads? Thanks so much!
From Paul Wegner’s Isaiah Commentary, page 100
https://68gb68.org/skill-crossover-between-hobbies-unexpected-synergies/