"Becoming tired of our own, sometimes inexhaustibly creative answers"

Spiritual direction for Creatives

Dec 29, 2025
About the Author

As creative Christians, does it take years for us to become tired of our own answers to life’s challenges before we recognise our own DIY and self-help Christian practices?

CONTENTS
+ Recognising self-help Christian practices?
+ He removes what blocks our enjoyment of Him
+ Conversations with God

Dear Creatives, apparently in Britain, the busiest day for people searching for a new house online is on Boxing Day, the 26th December!

Perhaps like me you’re thinking about what’s next? You’re looking for an improved life? Maybe you’re embarking on new career discoveries, a vocation or calling, or you’re a long way down this track already? Are you making this work for you or have your well laid plans taken you nowhere? In this purposefully short post I’m discussing our head and heart in these times of change.

Recognising self-help Christian practices?

As Christians, does it take years for us to become tired of our own answers to life’s challenges before we recognise our own DIY and self-help Christian practices? Does it take some of us - those who are more capable of managing our own worlds, those with perhaps more resources, financial or domestic security, those with intellectual, highly creative or imaginative minds, or those with die-hard determination - does it take us longer to come to the end of ourselves? Do we find ways to keep our vocational selves, or dreams, alive, when actually these, as our unrecognised sources for identity and life, might need to expire? Do we mistakenly work harder, perhaps even fight, to maintain our own sensibilities for life?

As a sobering thought, there was one beautiful, creative, musical Angel in heaven, who fell from that kingdom. And there were extraordinary artisans who created a figurative heifer that the newly birthed nation of Israel chose to dance around in delirious devotion. There were also religious experts who elevated their intellectual thinking, their status, above recognising life, right under their noses.

He removes what blocks our enjoyment of Him

In the biopic of Vincent Van Gogh, “At Eternity’s Gate”, directed by Julian Shnabel, there is an astonishing conversation which shakes me as a creative thinker. In this extract it’s 5:20 into the clip below:

The priest:
"So you believe that God gave you this gift [painting], because he wanted to keep you in misery?"

Vincent:
"Hu, I never thought about it that way"

I have to voice the question: does God specialise in human misery, or quite the opposite? Here’s two thoughts from Larry Crabb.

"The Spirit will rob us of peace from every source - a popular podcast, a book deal, a successful platform, a satisfying job, a soaring career, a dream, a promising ministry - other than God"

"God doesn’t arrange life to make us feel good, He removes what blocks our enjoyment of Him"
Dr. Larry Crabb

Perhaps frustration and disappointment are to be welcomed in whatever vocation we’re pursuing, a vocation in the world or in the church? Could these times in our lives, where we can experience achingly painful heartbreak, shattered dreams, actually be moments when a proverbial new Christmas star dawns in our human hearts?

I’m reminded of Bono in his latest film, Stories of Surrender (my sentence here may appear as though it’s a side note), where he says

"I craved my father’s attention so I sang louder and louder"
Bono

Conversations with God

For myself, a creative thinker, I am a little more aware that I can imaginatively find ways around problems of the heart, so it can take me longer to exhaust these possibilities before I recognise and respond to the Spirits invitation.

So, how can we recognise these seasons in our own lives? Perhaps by voicing words and sentences, that begin to shape our own life experience, is the beginning of a conversation with God. And maybe with one another.

Creatives, if you’d like an informal conversation over a coffee, around your life and your faith, get in touch.

-Andy.

Journal Ministry of Imagination

"Becoming tired of our own, sometimes inexhaustibly creative answers"

Spiritual direction for Creatives

As creative Christians, does it take years for us to become tired of our own answers to life’s challenges before we recognise our own DIY and self-help Christian practices?

I have to voice the question: does God specialise in human misery, or quite the opposite? Here’s two thoughts from Larry Crabb.

Journal Ministry of Imagination Latest thoughts

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"Thoughts on “At Eternity’s Gate”, the biopic of Vincent Van Gogh, and on becoming tired of our own, sometimes inexhaustibly creative answers."

1 "Andy Maitland, iPad drawings, An Imagined Garden One, from figurative to abstraction 2011-22".

This work sits within a wider practice of imagination, art, and reflection: Ministry of Imagination