Your Current System
-An exclusive excerpt from Allen’s new book-
Your current system for how you create has proven itself over time. It is perfectly designed to produce the results you are experiencing.
Where it is thriving, we are thriving. And where it’s broken or insufficient, our creativity will be broken and insufficient. It can’t rise beyond us. Nor do we get extra credit for suffering through our glitches or embracing them as just how we’re wired.
Are you weary and overwhelmed when you try to create? If so, it may feel like you have creative fatigue when what you really have is glitch fatigue. The glitch is what’s causing things to be harder than they have to be. We see it every time we try to make things right and end up making a bigger mess. Paul expressed a similar sentiment:
I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. (Romans 7:15 NLT)
While he wasn’t talking specifically about creativity, it certainly applies. Paul goes on:
I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. (Romans 7:24-25 MSG)
Paul is at his wit’s end looking for a solution. And the answer isn’t a program. It’s Jesus. That’s because our original operating system was compromised by one who isn’t our Creator. The roots connect all the way back to the Tree of Knowledge in Eden. Toxic roots always create poison fruits.
Only our Creator has the power to recreate us…and our creativity. That’s what we’re after—to get unstuck so we can return to who we were created to be. To become integrated creators once again. To experience life to the full.
But then something in us pulls us to do something totally different. Because, really, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s all good. Right?
(From The Creativity Glitch: How to Stop Being Stuck, Find Your Groove, & Create with God.Copyright © 2026 Allen Arnold.)
This reading was crafted to encourage your pursuit of story and creativity with God. Your donation makes this crowd-funded initiative possible. You can support it via PAYPAL (or by check to Allen Arnold at PO Box 62841, Colorado Springs, CO 80962).
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