If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may have seen the name Emily P. Freeman because I regularly join her linkups, where bloggers share things they’ve learned in the past month or season. The goal of Emily’s blog is to create “space for your soul to breathe.” You have to slow down to read her posts. They show evidence of careful pondering and of her gentle nature.
You can see that my blog has a different tone and focus. I share historical research, original manuscripts, picture book reviews, and interviews with archivists. But I also include trivia that excites me and activities that are making me happy these days.
I want to present a blend of historical information and news stories with personal recommendations and passions.
So today I’m going to begin a three-part series of favourite passages from one of Emily P. Freeman’s books, A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live. I read this book a couple of years ago and typed out two pages of quotations that I wanted to ponder. True to form, I never spent much time pondering them, but now as I organize them to share with my blog readers, I am reading and re-reading them, considering how they apply to my life and work. I am creating this post as much for me as I am for you. I hope you’ll slow down as you read the passages and I hope you’ll share your insights with me.
“What if you desire to do a particular thing because God created you a particular way, not to tease you or make you miserable, but to actually mold you into becoming more like him, for his glory and the benefit of others?”
“For so long I was too afraid of my own mixed motives and false experiences of life to even consider waking up to my truest, most intimate desires. It felt wrong to want to uncover desire. But darkness and deceit is not all there is to the heart of a man or a woman. If we continue to live as though our hearts are desperately wicked, we have tragically misunderstood the work of Christ… Pursuing desire is only toxic when we demand our desires be satisfied on our terms and in our timing. As recipients of the new heart of the Spirit, our deepest desire, when honestly realized, will always lead us to God.”
These quotations reminded me of a passage from The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. In this book a senior demon advises his nephew on how to draw his “patient” away from God. Using this unique point of view Lewis makes observations that are piercingly insightful. The passage that came to mind is this: “When He [God] talks of their losing their selves, He means only abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.”
Emily P. Freeman has a way of getting me to think about Bible passages in ways I hadn’t considered before. She writes, “Aren’t we all Peter and John, unschooled and ordinary when it comes to the things that matter – things of influence, relationship, and heart? When these men in Acts 4 spoke with boldness and clarity, the leaders were stunned. But the source of their astonishment did not rest on the shoulders of these two men. The people who heard Peter and John traced their courage back to a greater source – these men have been with Jesus. These two image bearers spoke from a place deep within themselves, a place of courage and conviction. They carried God’s image into the world as the men they uniquely were – for the glory of God and the benefit of others.… When it comes to releasing the art we were made to live, we have to remember we carry within us the same Spirit as did Moses and Peter and John.”
Our personalities and passions are unique, but as Christians we have the same Spirit to embolden us. And we have a creative God who delights to use our creativity for his Kingdom.
I love these verses in the Bible that come after God has given Moses the instructions for building His Tabernacle. “The Lord said to Moses, ‘See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft. And behold, I have appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. And I have given to all able men ability, that they may make all that I have commanded you'” (Exodus 31:1-6)
Next week we’ll consider more specifically how to think about the art we were “made to live.” I hope you’ll join me.