Designing Worlds

“We can live in a world that we design,” according to Hugh Jackman singing “A Million Dreams” in The Greatest Showman. That line recently landed as a live spark on my inner kindling, setting off a mini-firestorm of passionate thought! I have spent years learning to decode the language of church for the creative tribe and here suddenly was clear snapshot of the disconnect! It might take a bit of focus to unravel, but it is an understanding that can cut through the Gordian knots that keep creative folks in a particularly “Christian” funk!

Christians who have been well taught the fundamentals tend to have their religious triggers tripped with a line like that—and often go off preaching—sometimes in a pulpit (other times just on Facebook). I’ll briefly demonstrate here what that would sound like: A world WE design? NO! The messes we are in result solely from our choice to live in a world WE design rather than submitting to the one GOD designed! We are not called to live in a world that WE design, but rather spend our lives seeking to press into and express the world of salvation that HE designed! He alone is the great Designer—when we try to design things, we constantly mess up in “Romans 7-frustration” or “Ecclesiastes-futility” fashion! God, in fact, is trying to deliver us completely from the worlds WE want to design and relocate us in the perfect world HE designed! (That’s roughly how it would go…and it would get amens!)

HEAR ME SAY before I go on that the above is NOT untrue! God does specialize in actually extricating us from all the hells that result from heeding Fleetwood Mac’s word in the 70’s: “You can go your own way….” That is a fundamental: All we like sheep have gone astray, as Isaiah said, and Jesus gloriously and graciously took that wandering--along with all the dysfunction it unraveled--upon Himself, landing us in the immense potential of life lived in union with Him!

The preaching above is NOT untrue in essence, but it might be wildly incomplete in application! In sports or music, the problem with “fundamentals” would be if we never went on to actually play a game or attempt a concerto performance! If we fixate on truth without the laboratory of relationship and real life, we run the risk of alienating the more complex (and creative) souls among us. And, when our desire for clarity in the fundamentals exceeds our awe for the majesty and mystery of life, we might be headed toward a dangerous reductionism—one that threatens the creative among us (or keeps them from even being among us at all). Einstein said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Getting clear on fundamentals can be helpful. Being reductionist can hurt.

What about this “fundamental” consideration: God is CREATOR and we are MADE IN HIS IMAGE! There are designs swirling in the hearts of people that are NOT necessarily contrary to God’s grand design because He planted them there in the sweet spot where He also placed “eternity”! It is harder to preach against living “in a world we design” if we begin to think of the God-possibilities wired in men and women BY HIS DESIGN! Even when those designs are not readily recognizable as His, the mere ABILITY to design (dream, create) should always be recognized as a hallmark of His Ephesians 2:10 creative workmanship! “We can live in a world that we design…” MIGHT JUST POINT TO THE CREATOR—AND REDEEMER—if we could just let it! Maybe we should celebrate the dreamers, not preach them into pits!

What if God wants to awaken and develop in you things that are Creator-like? What if He is not nearly as afraid of your dreams going astray as the church has made you feel? What if there are drives and urges and longings in us that did NOT die with Christ because they were actually planted by God in your very being? In that case, they would be turned on by the engine of resurrection life on the other side of the cross! What if His plan was for you to “rule and reign” in life—not just over attacks of the enemy but also over doldrums and uncreative living—over boring and repetitive mere conformity to a clinical standard—over the oppression that dwarfs novel thinking and keeps dreamers in boxes and creative risk-takers in religious captivity? In short, what if God DELIGHTS IN the worlds we design and wants to partner with us in the odyssey????

As I sweated it out on the elliptical today with Hugh Jackman singing in my ears, it occurred to me in broad spectral color how much we weren’t telling the whole story when we make a rush to force repentance from our own dreams! Only God Himself in intimate relationship can help a creative find the line between his own indulgence and his authentic passion-driven part in the master plan! It is a delicate work that requires a skilled spiritual surgeon! He alone qualifies!

Remember when God brought each of the animals to Adam to see what he would call them? Genesis declares, “Whatever Adam called them, that was their name.” That seems more like the commissioning of art than the fulfillment of a utilitarian purpose (though everything God does has purpose—even His art!). Think of it: the God who just released the ultimate creative project—the UNIVERSE--now turns and shares that joy by commissioning another creative act from His friend Adam! In reductionist terms (I’ll indulge): God’s first task for man was a right-brained one! (And have you looked at animals lately—really looked? Consider a pink flamingo or a jewel-toned ostrich and tell me that’s all just practical and no whimsy or creative fun? And don’t get me going on fungi and ferns, fish and insects and even the fractal formations found throughout the natural world!)

Could it be that God actually wanted Adam and Eve to be the “under-shepherds” of His design to such an extent that it would seem like they lived in a world they designed? Did He want to release them into--not restrain them from-- their own creative energies? The lie that they ultimately believed in the garden was that God was holding back freedom—and perhaps acts of design and creativity—rather than championing His sons and daughters in the things He wired into them in already through His own creative act!

So let’s not repeat that lie to each other or to the outside world! Let’s not portray a God who is too small to allow you room for your initiative, your plans, your designs—even to live in a world YOU—along with those you love including Him—DESIGN! Let’s realize that there is NOTHING man can dream that can excel the dreams God has dreamed for Him—and planted in Him! The way forward is found in receiving Him as all that He is, not in turning the fundamentals into reductionist confinement! Let’s let the fundamentals serve their purpose as a beginning, not an end--and definitely not a cage! (I hear Pink Floyd here asking, “And did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?” But that’s another blog…)

God may be longing to graciously adjust our methodologies or mindsets, but He is not rebuking us for trying to design worlds. He wants to partner with your design skills like a Father partners with His child learning to paint, or a Master partners with His own apprentice. What creative projects might God be commissioning from you? Adam named the animals (not a few) and whatever he called them, that was their name! Your work, too, will matter because you have more authority as a “world designer” than you have realized!