Blank

Last week, while I was at my insurance company paying my regular quarterly investment, I was given their annual giveaway to clients -- a corporate journal/planner. Although it wasn't anything fancy (like a check for 10,000 bucks or a three-night stay in a five-star hotel) I found myself smiling, happy at the thought that I'm getting an unexpected gift.

Later on after having left the insurance office, I opened the new journal and flipped through its empty pages. Right there I remembered how much I loved looking at unused pages of notebooks or planners (even ones that weren't mine) and started to think back to the fact that I have two or three journals that I had unknowingly collected and left blank.

Why was I excited at the thought of getting another set of fresh pages to use? It's not like I have all the time in the world to fill all of them up. In fact I am at the moment lagging in filling out my current journal, one that I started at least four years ago. So, why the exhilaration of the thought of filling out another set of clean slate of white pages?

The answer came to me on the commute -- blank pages in an fresh journal, to me, represented a challenge to be creative. I thought about it some more and was taken back to the book of Genesis where God said He would make man in His own image. Right at the very beginning of time the first image God shows us of Himself in the Good Book is the face of a Creator.

I think I've always felt that facing the blank pages of potential diaries (it's so manly! I know!) was an open invitation for me to express the creative ability that has been built into my DNA; a manifestation of the image of the Creator in me.

The same feeling is actually evoked in me whenever I delve into my other artistic and creative hobbies: scrap-booking and needlework (I am a guy! I just love very delicate and detailed artwork! :P I also play the guitar and write songs, by the way).

There's just something hopeful and inviting about an empty page. Or a bunch of scrap-booking material waiting to be put together. Or tunes in your head that are begging to be organized into a song. Somehow it feels like a reminder of who you are supposed to be (creative) and who you were made to be (a reflection of your Creator).

These creative expressions may sometimes feel trivial or insignificant. But really it can be the most divine thing you can do in your life because not only are you tapping into the purpose of your being, but also you are, as you function in your purpose, making your Designer proud.

An unused canvass in front of a passionate painter. A block of wood standing before a soulful sculptor. A blank page sitting across a whimsical writer.

These are all open invitations to be creative. These are invitations to be who you were meant to be.