“You’re valid. Step up. Bring what you’ve got. Don’t you dare hold back. Not cringing back, not with arrogant pride, with sane humility bring your stuff. Other people need it.”

Jordan Raynor in Called to Create

“Since we were made to glorify God, worship happens when someone is doing exactly what he or she was made to do.”

Andrew Peterson in Adorning the Dark

“Self-deception is the enemy of wholeness because it prevents us from seeing ourselves as we really are. It covers up our lack of growth in the Spirit of the truthful One and keeps us from coming to terms with our real personalities.”

Brennan Manning in The Importance of Being Foolish

“Your habits in the short term impact your calling in the long term.”

Ryan Romeo in Head in the Clouds, Feet on the Ground

“The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.”

Richard Foster in Celebration of Discipline

“When Christians criticize, carp, and complain but offer no alternatives, the world rolls its eyes, snickers, and moves on. It is really only when we offer a ‘more excellent way’ that we command or deserve much attention.”

Robert Briner in Roaring Lambs

Play is an activity we engage in for its own sake—because we love it. Because it feels good. Because it brings us joy

M. H. Clark

“You have a masterpiece inside you, too, you know. One unlike any that has ever been created, or ever will be. And remember: If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you.”

Gordon MacKenzie in Orbiting the Giant Hairball

“But unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint or clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts, or having some kind of important career.”

Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water

“When we make, we invoke the abundance of God’s world into the reality of scarcity all about us.”

Makoto Fujimura in Art + Faith

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