Child-like Creativity: Part 2

If you missed Part 1, I encourage you to go read that first and come back!  Go here to read it.

Children Always Ask for The Extra Cookie

Children always ask for the extra cookie, why don’t we?  And, you probably know how persistent they can be!  They will ask over and over and over again until they get what they want.  Jesus tells us to do the same thing.  Ask God for those creative ideas and inspirations that you need.  He wants to give them to us!

Matthew 7:7-8 (AMP)  “Ask and keep on asking and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking and you will find; knock and keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who keeps on asking receives, and he who keeps on seeking finds, and to him who keeps on knocking, it will be opened.”

Matthew 7:11  “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

“It may be that we have lost our ability to hold a blazing coal, to move unfettered through time, to walk on water, because we have been taught that such things have to be earned; we should deserve them; we must be qualified.  We are suspicious of grace.  We are afraid of the very lavishness of the gift.  But a child rejoices in presents!” -Madeleine L’Engle

Children Are Free and Not Self-Conscious

Children don’t often think about what they look like or sound like when they play.  They simply play, engaged whole-heartedly in the task at hand.  When as adults we are self-conscious, it is usually about a perceived weakness and the concern of how others will react to it.  Moses experienced the same thing in Exodus 4:10-12 when God was asking him to talk to the people.  Read carefully, how God responded to Moses.

Exodus 4:10-11  “Then Moses said to the LORD, “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” The LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say.”

“A lot of adult life has been spent in trying to overcome this corruption, in unlearning the dirty devices of this world, which would dull our imaginations, cut way our creativity.  So it is only with the conscious-unself-consciousness of a child that I can think about theories of aesthetics, of art, particularly as these touch upon my questions about life and love and God.” – Madeleine L’Engle

“In the act of creativity, the artist lets go the self-control which he normally clings to and is open to riding the wind.  Something almost always happens to startle us during the act of creating, but not unless we let go our adult intellectual control and become as open as little children.  This means not to set aside or discard the intellect but to understand that it is not to become a dictator, for when it does we are close off from revelation.” – Madeleine L’Engle

“In art we are once again able to do all the things we have forgotten; we are able to walk on water; we speak to the angels who call us; we move, unfettered, among the stars….We write, we make music, we draw pictures, because we are listening for meaning, feeling for healing.  And during the writing of the story or the painting or that composing or singing or playing, we are returned to that open creativity which was ours when we were children.  We cannot be mature artists if we have lost the ability to believe which we had as children.  An artist at work is in a condition of complete and total faith.” – Madeleine L’Engle

A Child Is Not Aware of Limited Potential

A child often doesn’t know what she can and cannot do and so attempts to do just about anything that enters into her mind.  This is why children need protecting since being able to leap off of tall buildings isn’t something that a child can really do without harm.  But, in our effort to protect children from these “impossible” feats, we also limit what they can do which is so much more than we think is even possible.

Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

Matthew: 17:20 “He replied, ‘Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.’”

Matthew 19:26 “Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’

“…we forget that we are more than we know.  The child is aware of unlimited potential, and this munificence is one of the joys of creativity.  Those who struggle in our own ways, small or great, trickles or rivers, to create, are constantly having to unlearn what the world would teach us; it is not easy to keep a child’s high creativity in these late years of the twentieth century.” – Madeleine L’Engle

As you seek to increase your creativity, remember to consider these characteristics of children and let them enhance your play with new ideas!

Quotes for Parts 1 and 2 have been taken from the following books:

“Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art” by Madeleine L’Engle

“Born to Create” by Theresa Dedmon