“Real artists ship.” – Steve Jobs
If finding your Creative Type helps you answer the question, “Who am I?” and The Creator’s Journey answers the question, “Where am I going?” then Living Out Your Creative Calling is written to answer the question, “What am I called to do?”
It’s easy to overcomplicate our creative calling. But how often do we delay taking that next creative step in hopes of a perfectly illuminated path when our calling is simply to act, to create, to just do something?
Pastor Kevin DeYoung winces at the “funny because it could be true” headline at Lark News, the collection of fake Christian news and satire, and recounts the report.
MAN, 91, DIES WAITING FOR WILL OF GOD
Tupelo, Miss.—Walter Houston, described by family members as a devoted Christian, died Monday after waiting seventy years for God to give him clear direction about what to do with his life. “He hung around the house and prayed a lot, but just never got that confirmation,” his wife Ruby says. “Sometimes he thought he heard God’s voice, but then he wouldn’t be sure, and he’d start the process all over again.” Houston, she says, never really figured out what his life was about, but felt content to pray continuously about what he might do for the Lord. Whenever he was about to take action, he would pull back, “because he didn’t want to disappoint God or go against him in any way,” Ruby says. “He was very sensitive to always remaining in God’s will. That was primary to him.” Friends say they liked Walter, though he seemed not to capitalize on his talents. “Walter had a number of skills he never got around to using,” says longtime friend Timothy Burns. “He worked very well with wood and had a storyteller side to him too. I always told him, ‘Take a risk. Try something new if you’re not happy,’ but he was too afraid of letting the Lord down.” To his credit, they say, Houston, who worked mostly as a handyman, was able to pay off the mortgage on the couple’s modest home.
Pastor DeYoung explains. “Too many of us have passed off our instability, inconsistency, and endless self-exploration as “looking for God’s will,” as if not making up our minds and meandering through life were marks of spiritual sensitivity.”[1]
Ouch.
Just Create Something
So, “What am I called to do?…”
Want to know the answer?
Something.
You should just do something.
Create something.
Build something.
Ship something.
Don’t Wait for the “Liver Shiver”
DeYoung gives some counter-cultural advice. “So go marry someone, provided you’re equally yoked and you actually like being with each other. Go get a job, provided it’s not wicked. Go live somewhere in something with somebody or nobody. But put aside the passivity and the quest for complete fulfillment and the perfectionism and the preoccupation with the future, and for God’s sake start making some decisions in your life. Don’t wait for the liver-shiver. If you are seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, you will be in God’s will, so just go out and do something.” [2]
Dr. DeYoung, to be fair, has his own reservations about the Enneagram, and any elevation of a personality-typing system above a simple observational tool, and of course, Scripture itself. He provides a specific warning that infusing the Enneagram with spiritual significance is dangerous, rightly pointing out that our source of truth and ultimate authority is God’s Word, though he admits there can be some benefit to learning more about how God has made us and those around us.
“Many people can learn useful things about themselves and others from the Enneagram… When put in their proper place, there’s something to learn from the find-your-personality literature.” [3]
As Dr. Russell Moore recounts, the Enneagram is merely an observational tool for better understanding ourselves and those around us and should not rise to being a theological tool on the same level as Scripture.
Don’t Wait for Perfect Conditions to Create
Does the advice “Just Do Something” sound like strange advice on a website all about finding your unique Creative Type and living out your unique Creative Calling? It shouldn’t, because only God understands us perfectly—even better than we can ever understand ourselves! (How is that for both a scary and humbling thought?)
We are called, as imperfect people, in an imperfect world, with imperfect knowledge about our capabilities, and a limited view of what the future will hold, to simply step out and live a life of faith, our certainty not in any of those things, but in the One who made us and called us.
“We can stop pleading with God to show us the future, and start living and obeying like we are confident that He holds the future.” [4]
Perfect knowledge of who we are and what we are called to do is never a pre-requisite to act, to create, to just do something. If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never create a thing.
Start that business.
Write that book.
Begin that project.
Just do something.
We are all called to create for change. How well are you changing the culture around you? Take this free assessment to get your Culture Change Score and find out.
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[1] Kevin DeYoung Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will Moody Publishers, April, 2009, p 12
[2] Ibid. p
[3] https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/enneagram-road-back-somewhere-else/ Last accessed December 19, 2020
[4] Ibid.
