Inception, Inside Man, Ocean’s 11

What do the movies Inception, Inside Man, and Ocean’s 11 (12 & 13) have in common? For one thing, they are all very creative stories involving high crimes and revenge. We love to be entertained by and marvel at movies like this, don’t we?! It’s exciting to witness brilliance put into action.

Kristin and I were talking this morning about how amazing the human mind really is. Many of the artistic expressions of our culture display so much brilliant creativity that people are capable of producing.

Kristin read to me this quote by N.T. Wright: “One of the tragedies of rebellious humankind is the sheer waste of God-given intellectual powers: think of the clever criminal working out cunning, detailed plans to commit the crime and escape undetected, or the clever dictator thinking how to crush opposition, to keep people in the dark as to his real selfish motives, and to stay in power. Fancy using your God-given thinking power for purposes like that.” (From p. 17 of Wright’s commentary on Romans.)

Wow, we have so much potential to use our “God-given intellectual powers” to create things that are beautiful, God-glorifying, life giving, culture-celebrating. And yet we so often settle to leave “creativity” for the entertainers in our culture.

But truly we are all called to reflect God’s creativity into all areas of life, work, and play… What if we all fully engage in creative thinking to find ways to lead our families, cities, nations, global communities into true human flourishing – into a world that beautifully and powerfully reflects God’s glory?!

In moving to India we hope to find creative, self-sustainable solutions to issues in society that keep people from living to their full God-image-bearing capacity. Jesus came to lead all people into freedom from spiritual and physical oppression, blindness, poverty… (Luke 4:18,19). And because of the world-changing events of his life, death and resurrection we can participate in ushering in such a world as God empowers us.

May our minds be liberated by our King to imagine what part we can play in this great drama of God’s kingdom taking root in every community on earth!

ryan