Great are the works of the LORD,
studied by all who delight in them.
Full of splendour and majesty is his work,
and his righteousness endures forever.
He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered;
the LORD is gracious and merciful. (Psalm 111:2-4)
The creative juices of humanity seem to flow like a ferocious river. Since the beginning, we have invented, innovated, improved, and implemented. Since Og first grunted at Ack to hand him that stone chisel thus giving birth to the world’s first wheel, human beings have sought to make everything from chainsaws to Chia pets.
Just take a stroll downtown and admire the concrete and steel-laden fruit that grows on the tree of human creativity. Paved roads for hybrid cars. Glass towers that house thousands of tiny bureaucrats, each nattering on about power lunches and leveraged buyouts.
Thanks to our spirit of innovation, we can have a face-to-face conversation with Mr. Cockatiel who lives in Canberra and Mrs. Molotov who lives in Moscow all while getting a pedicure at 36,000 feet in a Boeing 737. If we’re gifted at matchmaking, we might even convince the two to get married and make little Molotov Cockatiels.
Truth be told, humanity comes by this creativity honestly; God talked for six days to make the world. God made us in His image, which is another way of saying that we’re a chip off the Old Block. We make stuff because God makes stuff.
However, as we marvel at our own ingenuity, we might do well to reflect on one simple truth about our creative legacy:
It’s all dead.
Not one spark of life, not one reproducing cell. Contrary to the words of a fairly brilliant (and now dead) Oxford scholar, there is actually no ghost in the machine.
But some of you sitting on the other side of the screen might be screaming, “We can create life and we’ve been doing it since Adam and Eve!” It is true; humanity procreates and populates. But we should not be so quick to pat ourselves on the back. Making babies requires no measure of the creative spirit needed to erect a 72-storey skyscraper or pen a timeless song. In fact, the ability to bring rugrats into the world puts us on par with every other living organism in the world. Our sexual activity might facilitate life, but we are not the authors of such a work. We are merely taking dictation.
God’s unique legacy is life. All life stems from his creative impulse. The true beauty in the world around us is creation itself. Look at your cell phone and consider its inner workings. Then look at one blade of grass and do the same. Then consider a whole field of grass. Then consider the forest that houses many fields. Then consider a globe covered with such forests, teeming with something that escapes our creative grasp.
Anyway, the world around you is pretty cool. It’s like a big art gallery. Extraordinary works of art adorn its walls. The Artist not only desires to share His creative genius with His children, but He also wants us to hang our own creations on the wall. Our paintings and drawings might look like preschool art next to such brilliance but consider how a father or mother feels when such work is hung on the refrigerator at home.
Okay, maybe we could have skipped the Chia pets…