All posts tagged: #CreativeMotivation

Points of Pursuit: Pursuit of Passion pt 4

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“Commit your deeds to the Lord, and your plans shall succeed.” ~PROVERBS 16:3 In this life, no matter where you currently stand, there will come a time in your journey that you will desire to have more love, better relationships, profession, more money to pour into your passions, and success in balancing all of them. In our youth, we have the awkward moments of sampling what love and relationship with the opposite sex look like. We are giving crash courses in high school and undergrad or university, where we are expected to be good managers of our time and the ‘fruits’ of labors we are expected to produce. In and through it all, even into early adulthood, middle-aged life and beyond, the pursuit of success is the driving force toward our passion. During the season of ‘love,’ the rise for the pursuit of a romantic relationship and the refreshing tingle of endorphins is hard to miss. Having this desire is not a sin, but how we choose to meet these needs (inherent as they are …

Come Out of the Poverty Mindset: A Prophetic Word by Bri Lassiter

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A Message from Bri Lassiter: I’m excited to share this prophetic word as the Lord enables and prepares those entering a season of prosperity, to receive it. Just like Joseph experienced many different seasons in his lifetime, ranging from spoiled daddy’s boy who lacked nothing, to the pit, poverty, and slavery, to obtaining a favored position in a rich rulers house, to imprisonment again, and finally governing Pharoah’s house and guiding a nation through a famine, we too, experience both lack and prosperity in our lifetimes. The Lord sustained and prepared Joseph for each season, and he wants to do the same for us. “Learn how to trust Me and see My provision in times of lack, and learn how to take, as I bring you to a new season of authority and give you everything you need to do My will. Learn how to let go of fear, fear that I will not provide, fear there will not be enough, fear I will let you down. Trust who I Am, and My thoughts and …

Why The Bird Sings: Faith for Creatives

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*Revised from August 3, 2015 “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” ~Maya Angelou We, as the artist and writers, the dreamers of the world, creative beings, fashioned in the likeness of our loving God and Father, share a beautiful thread of comradery with the birds who so sweetly sing. We write because we have a story to tell. We create because we have a vision. We dream because we have been blessed with a hope so gloriously written by Christ’s hands that we know it will not disappoint (ROM. 5:5). We don’t need to have the answers for every step we are led to take or the exact ins and outs that lead to our future goals in order to share something beautiful. We just need willing hearts to follow His lead and our voices ready to sing in the symphony of song that He has orchestrated for us! Lift up your voice, lift up your faith, and sing. “He has given me a new …

The Wisdom of Pursuit: Pursuit of Passion Pt 3

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*Revised from the “Postures” Series from July 2016 “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.” ~JAMES 1:5-6 Our passions are as vast as the sand of the sea. Even so, the way in which we are to pursue those passions are equally as vast and require wisdom, the wisdom of God if we are truly to hit our marks and be successful in a way that not only pleases God but allows us to be blessed and be a blessing to others. The Word of God tells us in that if any of us lack wisdom we should as God who gives unto us abundantly. To approach and pray to Savior in Faith and Wisdom is to approach Him with focused confidence in Who He is and who we are in Him as …

The Posture of Pursuit: Pt 2 of Pursuit of Passion

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Faith. Fear. Worry. Wisdom. All four cups are set before us to drink from as we traverse our pathway of pursuit of passion, but which cups are we choosing to drink from? The question seems simple enough and the answer even simpler. What is our posture in prayer as we pursue our passion? If prayer, seeking the wisdom of God, is not our foundation we are already off to a bad start. Christ Himself blessed us with the truth that apart from Him we could do nothing, and sharing with Him in all things is done through prayers of faith (JOHN 15:5). Prayer. It is more than just a religious act of acknowledging a Power greater than yourself. For the Redeemed, prayer is, or rather should be, an authentic conversation with our Beloved Father, Friend, and Savior, Christ Jesus. The Word ensures us that “…The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” (JAMES 5:16) We who have accepted the free gift of salvation through the finished work of Christ Jesus ARE now the righteousness of God …

Talking with Your Mouth Full: You Are What You Eat pt 4

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“Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” ~I PETER 2:1-3 NKJV In a letter of encouragement, the Apostle Peter writes that we, like newborn babes, should desire the pure milk of the word and grow in that. But let’s do a bit of backtracking in the word, recognizing that I Peter as one stream of thought in entirety and not segmented chapters. With that being said, what was Peter’s statement to the Body of Believers prior to chapter two verses one through three? “Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because, “All flesh is as grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, And its flower falls away, But the word of the Lord endures forever.” Now this is the …

Watch It!: You Are What You Eat pt 3

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“Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” ~ MATTHEW 26:41 Eating is more than just the substance that we take in with our mouths. In all actuality, if you haven’t learned this truth yet, we eat with all of our senses. The first thing that we are drawn by is our sense of smell. Something lets us know, or leads us to believe that is good by the way it smells. It lures us, and like a fish on a hook, we follow the draw until our eyes take hold of what tempted us. At this point, we are left with a decision, to consume or not to consume. The first thought that comes to my mind is that of State Fair food or Carnival food. Let’s all be honest, there really is nothing good about all that deep fried greasy goodness, but our noses tell us otherwise and our eyes, more often than not come in agreement with the lie…heartburn and other ailments later, we are …

Waiting Like Bamboo: Learning to Progress One Step at a Time

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Over the years, I’ve been asked by several people I know, like I know you have been too, ‘what is your plan?’ They ask because they know my dreams. They ask because they have seen my struggle, and from their vantage point and sometimes even my own, it seems like nothing fruitful is happening. That seeming reality couldn’t be further from the truth. I once heard Joyce Meyer talking about growth and waiting on God. She talked about how she’d learned bamboo shoots, once planted, will spend up to five years growing deep roots before actually breaking through the surface. But once they break through they can grow a foot in a matter of hours. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” ~PSALM 119:105 That teaching was so encouraging but the reality is, nobody really wants to wait like bamboo. We want the deep roots TODAY and the foot-by-the-hour growth TODAY. All of this makes me think about the deceiving phrase of ‘overnight success.’ Again, one sees bamboo stretching …

The One We Serve: Faith for Our Labors

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I’ma tell you like Daddy told me, in everything you do give God the glory. Every opportunity you’re given, sing your song for TWO as you would for a THOUSAND…” ~JOANN ROSARIO The above quote is the opening verse from the song titled “Serve You Only,” by JoAnn Rosario. There is such wisdom in this quote, such encouragement that, to me, really puts life and actions in proper perspective. Sometimes, most of the time, we weigh the value of our efforts by the size of the audience or the applause we may or may not receive as a result of it. We allow the absence of accolades to force our minds into the abysmal depths of disbelief, thinking our work is for not. “No one will buy this painting. No one cares about this poem. Who is going to read this book? I shared the Gospel and no one accepted Christ as their Savior. Is my work in vain?” All of these thoughts, and we all have had them, lead me to the old saying, “If …

It’s Worth the Mess: 3 Reasons to Keep Creating

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Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly . . . until you can learn to do it well.” ~Zig Ziglar I have always been a believer that anything worth having is definitely worth fighting for. Having healthy relationships? Worth fighting for. Having security? Worth fighting for. Having victory in maintaining faith? Worth fighting for. I could go on and I am sure that you could add several things to the ‘worth fighting for’ list. But one thing I have often lost the fight in (because I didn’t show up) was in learning new avenues of creating. Why? Because more times than not I was afraid of failure. I wonder if you can relate. The thing about being a creative person–the thing about being human–is that the beginnings of all of our successes begin in a mess. We don’t begin walking with elegant or confident gaits. We fall and we scuff our hands and knees. The same is true for each and every creative venture that we embark upon. Our first drafts will likely be, well, garbage …