By: Dale Weckbacher
Joel 2:28
Then after I have
poured out my rains again, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons
and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men
will see visions.
NLT
In Genesis 1:26 we are told that God created man in Our
image. Interestingly it is translated
Our image speaking of the Trinity and the triune nature of God. However, when Adam sinned, a separation formed
between man and God and mankind began to take on the nature of sin instead of the
nature of God. Thankfully, God created a
way for the restoration of man to the Godly image for which he was created.
In Acts 2:17 Peter quotes Joel 2:28 when explaining what
occurred when the Holy Spirit fell on the 120 in the Upper Room. Peter is telling them that what they had seen
was a fulfillment of what Joel prophesied, speaking of a time when mankind
would once again be reconnected with his godly image. Part of this godly image is the ability of
old men to dream dreams and young men to see visions.
This past weekend I attended Phoenix Comicon, a science
fiction fantasy convention occurring annually in Phoenix Arizona. This was the fourteenth year of the
convention. Besides the appearances of
various stars involved in the science fiction industry, there are also
attendees who dress as their favorite character. Some, however, take creative liberties with
their characters.
For example, one woman dressed up as a Barbie zombie. She was wearing a box painted to look like
the box a Barbie Doll would come in except the Barbie inside has turned into a
zombie. Her creativity was amazing and original. Other individuals were able to take ordinary
things and create something extraordinary.
Like the individual that took an old timing gun used to tune up a car
and turned it into a phaser gun like those seen on Star Trek. Of course there were also those costumes that
bordered on the weird. The individuals
wearing these costumes were from all ages but many, like the woman dressed up
as the zombie Barbie were relatively young.
One of the celebrities at the convention was Mark Shepherd
who currently stars in the show Supernatural and many other programs. Mr. Shepherd praised what he referred to as
the creative genius of the writers of his show but also praised the creative
genius of many of the convention’s attendees.
As I thought upon Mr. Shepherd’s comments, I concluded that there was indeed
a great creative energy present at the convention. I then wondered what would occur in our world
if we took this amazing creative genius, and put it to use solving the many
problems facing our society today.
It was young, energetic, creative, and visionary individuals
that wrote our nations Declaration of Independence. After defeating the British in the Revolutionary
War, these creative geniuses went on to create a unique republic of limited
government with safeguards in place to insure this new nation did not become
like the tyranny they fought against for their independence. In other words, the creative individuals used
their creative energy to solve problems and create a better world for
themselves and the rest of the nation.
Imagine if we could find a way to unleash the creative
energy I observed at Phoenix Comicon and put it to work solving our nation, and
world’s problems. After all, God did
create all of us with creative abilities, dreams, and visions but all too
often, individuals fail to unleash these abilities. Some of the reasons I believe this occurs
are,
1)
Fear of failure – We do not believe we possess
the abilities necessary to succeed and therefore, fail to even start.
2)
Failure of our education system to give students
the freedom to unleash their creative abilities – All too often, our education
system is more of a cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all system, interested in
achieving some outcome goal instead of teaching students to think and
create.
3)
Failure of our political system – Political
correctness and groupthink dominates our current political system. Individuals have creative liberty as long as
they go along and follow the system’s established norms. However, should an individual come up with
some radical idea (i.e. scrapping the current progressive income tax in favor
of a more equitable flat or value added tax or someone opposing an intrusive
law like Obamacare) he or she is vilified by friends and the media (i.e. the
Tea Party). In our nation’s Bill of
Rights, our founders wanted to preserve the right of individuals to develop creative
ideas that go against the current groupthink of the political establishment. However, our current politically correct
system discourages this creativity because it may offend someone.
To unleash our creative energy we need,
1)
Faith –God, the creator, created each of us in
His image. However, when Adam fell, Sin
corrupted our creative energies. In
order to release the creative energy God intended us to have; we must come to
God in faith believing Jesus died for our sins.
When we do so we are putting our faith in someone greater than ourselves
and we gain the ability to create amazing solutions.
2)
Feed on the Word of God – Many of the problems
we face today are unsolvable using our limited knowledge. We therefore need to study God’s Word and be
tap into its wisdom in order to find solutions.
3)
Fellowship with others of like mind and faith –
When we begin hanging around others that have faith in God and study His Word,
we become a powerful team and gain the ability to come up with amazing creative
solutions.
Our nation currently faces serious problems, problems that
many of the youth I observed at Comicon will have to deal with. As our government continues to run deficits,
the national debt continues to increase.
Eventually this debt will need to be paid and most likely by today’s
younger generation. These youths are
also graduating college with huge student loan debt and dim job and career
prospects, which mean they may be unable to repay this debt.
If we as a nation are going to solve these problems, we must
unleash the creative energy of these youth and help them channel it into
finding solutions to these problems.
Granted, these individuals may come up with crazy or weird ideas that
will not work but that is the risk we take as a free society. However, I have faith and confidence that
somewhere in the creative energy of people in our nation are the solutions
necessary for us as a nation to solve our many problems. The question is, will we continue to stifle
this creative energy or unleash it and allow it to thrive.
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