One of the things I loved about all of my major classes in college was the freedom. After my freshman year, I don’t think I ever took a written test again. All of my tests were projects. The freedom that came with those projects is what I loved! We were given basic guidelines with room left to explore how and what exactly we wanted to do.
I find that when I’m given too many instructions, I feel like I don’t have the freedom to explore and create. And when I feel like I can’t do that, I don’t work well. I get stuck and frustrated and never like what I come up with.
But even if the end product is super creative, that isn’t where creativity is. Creativity is always between a blank piece of paper and the final product. It’s in the process.
In a culture where creativity isn’t encouraged, it’s been exciting to see the kids at Burime growing in their creativity! They no longer copy each other. Or if they do, they are now starting to add their own twist to it so it’s not exactly the same. Some even come up with original ideas! They are learning how to get from point A to point B by creating their own way instead of the only way they’ve been taught.
But it’s the same with us. Although there is only one way to God (through Jesus), the way we find Jesus is different for all of us. I’m pretty sure God would get bored rather quickly if we all found him the exact same way.
Some of us take a more direct route while others tend to go in circles or loop back or take a more curvy road before making it to Jesus while others have yet to make their way to him.
But how we get there is where you can see God’s creativity. Not a single person finds God the exact same way. So why do I keep thinking that everyone needs to hear about God the exact same way?
When we share our faith, we shouldn’t share it the exact same way to every person. Some people need to hear it short and to the point, others need to see an arrow, others need to hear it zigzaging while others might need to hear it in circles.
(Side note: sometimes, in order to share God, we have to walk down those other roads we may have avoided on our route to Jesus.)
I don’t think we should limit sharing our faith to simply giving an invitation to Christ or telling our stories of how we came to faith or bringing people to church.
I think we need to try to share God as creatively as he reveals himself through songs or humor or art or films or fashion or sharing life or joy or pain or mistakes or just having fun with other people!
God doesn’t limit himself in how he reveals himself to people. And I don’t think he wants us to limit ourselves in how we share him. God shows himself in a million different ways to us so why can’t we share him in a million different ways?
But seriously. Straight lines are nice but there are so many other lines to choose from! Instead of always going with the straight line, why not spice things up!
What kind of line are you going to use to share Jesus this week?