All posts tagged: faith

Guard Your Future: Creative Motivation

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Stop cheating on your Future with your Past” ~Pastor Kenny, Associate Pastor of Covenant Church The phrase sounds simple enough, but it is often the simple things in life that cause people to stumble the most. We all know that it is true. But then, maybe the quote isn’t that simple. What does it really mean? To not cheat on your Future with your Past, is to not allow the “baggage” and the “failures” of yesterday-be they your own failures or those of someone else-to keep you from embracing the goodness that is ahead. “Holding on to yesterday becomes nothing short of a robbing bondage. We lose everything if we don’t let go. We have to divorce yesterday.”   We have all heard the saying (and I paraphrase) “You can’t drive your car through the rear view mirror.” Well trying to do so is the equivalent of allowing your eye to wander back toward the past instead of being committed to the opportunity of the present future. If we take this attitude into a romantic …

Made Wonder Full: Faith Filled Encouragment for Creatives

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For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. ~PSALM 139:13-14 NKJV You are fearfully and wonderfully made! Some translations of verse 13 say, not that God ‘covered us in our mother’s wombs’ but that He knit us together in our mother’s wombs. When scripture uses the word ‘fearful,’ it doesn’t mean to be afraid, for what exactly did our Heavenly Father have to fear when He created you? What the word ‘fearful’ means here is that He created you with awe, care, and absolute reverence. Not only did the God of all Creation create you fearfully, but He knit you together, which means He got personal when He formed you! You mean so much that He made you from scratch with His own hands. Christ wouldn’t have created you if He had plans to erase your unique qualities and individual voice. On the contrary, He has plans to plant and cultivate you, to multiply the ‘wonder‘ that He …

Dreaming & Sowing Seeds

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“Dreaming is not wasting time, it’s peeking into your future ahead of time.”   In all truth, even though I polished up the words to make them into a quote, they are actually the result of a conversation I was having with the Lord Jesus. I have said it a bazillion times, that I am a stickler for time. I like to make the best use of every second of every day…its akin to squeezing blood from a turnip the way I can be when it comes to time management. “Dreaming is sowing seed.” This is not always a good thing, although I still stand on the fact that being wasteful of time is not good either. Once before, several years ago, also while having a conversation with God, the topic then being money, He asked me, “What happens to a fist full of sand when you squeeze it as tightly as you can?” My response, “The tighter you squeeze the faster it seems to slip away from you.” His response, “That is exactly what happens …

The Beginning of ICFTS’ Creative Adventure

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Hello, Fellow Creatives! Candice here. I am certain that coming to this platform and feasting upon the content here has led you to wonder how this creative space came to be, and furthermore, why is it called I came for the soup… I came for the soup… was birthed out of an adventure that began in June of 2013. A dear friend of mine asked if I wanted to accompany her on a vacation outside of the United States. Saying yes was the easy part, choosing the stomping ground for our adventure was where we ran into difficulty. “The artist in me, the writer in me, the innocent dreamer in me had reawakened with a newfound purity.” With a slew of viable and tempting options around the world, we found it almost impossible to make a definitive decision. What was the deciding factor? Several years prior she had had the chance to enjoy some mighty tasty (so I am told) Potato and Leek soup in Ireland.  She said she would often sit and think about …

An Unexpected Purpose & a Prepared Blessing by Pastor Robert House

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*This Article is written by Pastor Robert House. A short bio of the author will be at the end of the article.  My purpose in writing this is to tell my own truth and not to talk bad about anyone else or their experience as a pastor, stepfather, husband and even simply as a Christian but just to write out my own thoughts on what I have experienced so far in this 10-month journey of change. I have known my wife since I was in the 6th grade but we were never close because I was older but her family was active in the church as I was. Everyone knew me because I was one of the few blacks in the school. My wife also played sports with one of my close friends so I knew her through that association. Around September of 2017, she messaged me and told me how much I meant to her during that time since she grew up in a rough situation and we begin talking every day. On November …

Poetry in Motion: How God Sees His Children

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Do you believe, truly believe, that God sees us as His masterpieces, His precious work of art? I pray that you do, because accepting that truth enables us to see ourselves in such a different light, His light. In John 17:23  Jesus prays to the Father that we, His children, would recognize and know that God the Father loves us just as God the Father loves and sees Christ Jesus. God the Father sees His Son as Perfect, Blameless, Beloved, Righteous, Well Pleasing, Delighted In. ALWAYS WELCOME IN HIS PRESENCE! And this is how He sees those of us who trust in Christ Jesus’ Beloved Name, not because of our works or grand efforts, lest any man should boast, (Ephesians 2:8-9) but because of our faith in the finished work of His Son for us on the Cross. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship (Poiema), created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” The Greek word used for “Workmanship” is actually “Poiema,” from which we …

Creatives in Action Coming Soon!!!

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What is the first word that comes to mind when you hear the word, ‘creative’? Do you, like many people, think of a person who spends hours slinging paint on canvas or sewing stories on elaborate quilts? Maybe a singer, like Celine Dion comes to mind, and you, like me think, Wow, she is so whimsical. “…being a Creative goes beyond, but certainly encompasses, the creative passions of the visional, musical, and written arts, but it does not exclude other forms of creativity.”   The most important question to ask here, is do you picture yourself when you hear the word creative? If not, let this be the day that this changes. What does it even mean to be creative anyway? First, let’s define what it means to create. Create: transitive verb 1: to bring into existence … God created the heaven and the earth.  —Genesis 1:1 (King James Version) 2a : to invest with a new form, office, or rank  She was created a lieutenant. b : to produce or bring about by a course of action or behavior  Her arrival created a terrible fuss.  …

New Day Begins for ICFTS!

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“Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”  ~Isaiah 43:19 The season changes. The smell in the air is different. The sky is painted with dusty roses early in the morning, and dusk comes sooner than it did before. Still, you wait in the tangent, as the temperature changes from balmy heat to skin tingling chill and the delight of donning your sweater…not so much because you like the woven threads but more than anything because it is new! Today is a new day for I came for the soup… and that feeling of delight washes through me (Candice) the same way it does when I realize that I am standing just at the doorway to Autumn, my absolute favorite time of the year. Once upon a time, ICFTS was a blog centered around my growth and discovery of my maturing and once stifled creative voice. Today the blog becomes a community, geared …

Build it!: Faith for Creatives

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“Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, The watchman stays awake in vain. 2 It is vain for you to rise up early, To sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives His beloved sleep.” ~Psalm 127:1-2  When the Lord has given you an idea to create, no matter the obstacles you may seem to face, create it. Build it! When your idea is not just a ‘good idea’ but a ‘God idea’ you can rest in confidence that no matter what, as long as you remain in faith, and diligence, keeping your eyes on Him and trusting him every step of the way then what you are building, what you are creating will reach its purposed end and be fruitful. The Lord’s purpose will be fulfilled (Isaiah 46:10-11) so take confidence in knowing that if He has placed a purpose in you, spoken a dream to you, He will bring it to pass. Just have faith, do your part through faith, and remember, always remember, to take your rest in …

Pausing in the Moment: Faith for Creatives

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 Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He (Jesus) went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed. ~MARK 1:35 Our Savior and God, Jesus Christ, did not just come to the world to save us from our sins, but He also came to give us life to the fullest, and in so doing, be our example for how to live our best life. As our example, He shows us how to be in the ‘moment’ with others, to be available to their needs, to do our work in delight, but He also shows us when to pause…and to surrender our hearts to Him in quiet seclusion, just as He did with the Father. Whenever our Savior did this, even with great multitudes at His heels, He was able to return to them empowered, enriched, and able to give of Himself. Being Creatives, we often struggle with the idea of being still especially when we want to keep going. But we have to realize that ‘burnout’ is real and when there …