Welcome to Responding with Prayer,
An opportunity to respond to the complex everyday experiences that lift us up and bring us down.
My name is Jess.
I have struggled with attending to prayer,
And I hope this little offering brings you closer to the Creator.
Today's meditation is on creativity.
Let's start by taking five big breaths together.
Deep breathing has been studied and found to change how we engage stress in situations.
This is good for slowing down,
Preparing for prayer,
But also a good practice for all kinds of situations we find ourselves in.
Let's take one minute just to breathe and feel yourself breathe in that moment.
That was literally 60 seconds.
If your mind went to other places just now,
Or happens throughout this time,
That's okay.
It's natural,
And you're still here,
So let's move on.
Take a moment to identify one person or situation you are grateful for as you do this.
Take a minute and just out loud or in your head,
Express that gratitude towards God.
In the Hebrew Scriptures,
God's first action is creative.
We learn God is the great creative,
And anytime we put our hands and minds to creativity,
We are living into the image of God that we were created in.
Artistic endeavors are one kind of creativity,
But creative problem solving,
Innovation,
Imagination and play,
Generating new ideas are all creative ventures.
Let's respond to the God who graciously gives creativity.
If you're able,
Put out your arms and turn your palms up in a posture of release to the Creator.
Our bodies are an important part of prayer,
And the Christian Scriptures tell us of a very practical spiritual opportunity.
Offer back to God the gifts you have received.
Imagine you wrote the ideas and things you are inspired creatively about on the palms of your hands as an offering back to God.
What words would be there?
God,
We place into your hands these things on our hands.
We give to you the creativity that we have been inspired with and their impact on the world.
Let's also focus on giving ourselves to creativity.
What if we ordered our lives to maximize this gift that God has given us?
Let's take 30 seconds and just think,
What commitments would we have to make?
How about reprioritizing,
Putting ourselves out there,
Committing to time away,
Positive risk?
Creativity draws us to our purpose because it focuses us on the divine act of creating.
So in prayer,
We slow down and make commitments to our core foundations.
Spend a minute expressing to God how these creative gifts are giving you life and what freedoms you want to live into.
God,
We accept the freedom that comes with submission to you.
We often fight against the very abundant life that you have for us,
So we accept the grace of being creative.
We accept the grace of your love that creates creativity,
And we accept the way our creativity can positively impact the world.
Taking this time today did not create anything.
God may have changed your orientation towards creativity.
You may need to take the steps to get some creative space.
The great spiritual writers in the Christian tradition often maintained that prayer's greatest gift is not that it suddenly changes situations,
But that often it changes us.
Amen.
