Rather than seek popularity, seek to make a difference.

Once our art is available, we long for others to discover it. But there's an earlier, more essential discovery stage. One that’s far more personal.  

We all long for our lives and our art to make an eternal impact. Yet often our best efforts burn bright for a moment only to burn out.

Be God’s fool. 

The phrase immediately causes us to step back and look for any other option. None of us want to be seen as foolish.  

Hitting a deadline with your art isn’t the same as offering a lifeline through your art.  

Does your art feel under attack? If that seems over the top, I’ll rephrase the question. Has your current project taken you longer and cost you more than you anticipated? 

The art of creating well begins with the art of living well.  

There’s a saying I’ve posted in my office with this simple encouragement: 

Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end. 

A really good prayer to start your week: 

Is your current project more for yourself or for others?  

If God stirs a desire in you to pursue something together with him, he will see it through and you will step into that destiny...

I love new opportunities. But I often forget that before I can step into the new, I must become new.  

By that, I mean I must first go through a time of testing or refining with God. Until that happens, I won’t be ready for the upgrade in responsibility that awaits. If I try to bypass that process, then I stay as I am and miss the very path that would lead me to what’s next. 

I’ve become good friends with the two words: “Then what?”  

They remind me that there’s more at stake than what feels good in the moment. 

The path to a beautiful creative act is often wildly inefficient and messy.  

When I get stuck on a project, rarely is it due to a lack of creativity.  

The problem tends to be a lack of vision. And the less I see clearly, the more tightly I cling to the status quo. Yet the solution is often right in front of me if I would just open my eyes…and my hands. 

Each season brings with it some loss, much of it beyond your control and deeply painful. 

You need to quit feeling guilty or apologizing for your need of regular creative time. 

The creative longing isn’t a defect or something you need to get over. It’s how the Creator made you. Your deepest desires, the very things that make your heart come alive, actually serve as a source code that draws you to God…so you can pursue them together. 

My favorite character in the fantastical Netflix series Stranger Things is Jim Hopper, the chief of police in Hawkins, Indiana. 

We can know a lot about God and still miss pursuing our talents and dreams with him. 

When you first discovered what you love doing, it was from a place of deep joy.