Building a Life for All Seasons
Hello Everyone. Mark Batterson tells this story in his book called “In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day”.
“For more than thirty years, while Gordon MacKenzie worked at Hallmark … he led a lot of creativity workshops for elementary schools. Those workshops led to a fascinating observation …
MacKenzie would ask the kids up-front: ‘How many artists are there in the room?’ … the pattern of the responses never varied. In the first grade, the entire class waved their arms like maniacs. Every child was an artist.
In the second grade, about half the kids raised their hands. In the third grade, he’d get about ten out of thirty kids. By the time he got to sixth grade, only one or two kids would tentatively and self-consciously raise their hands …
MacKenzie came to this conclusion. ‘My guess is there was a time – perhaps when you were very young – when you had at least a fleeting notion of your own genius and were just waiting for some authority figure to come along and validate it for you. But none ever came.’ ”
Long before Gordon MacKenzie conducted his survey, the artist, Pablo Picasso, said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he (or she) grows up.”
What comes to your mind when you think of what you wanted to do, or who you wanted to be, when you were a child? As you were growing up, what dream did you set aside?
God may have created you with the ability to do the thing you set aside or to be who you imagined. Maybe it’s time to talk to God about these things again. Maybe it’s time for us to revive our dream and ask God to help us achieve it now. After all, the Bible says that in Christ all things are possible!
By the way, in 2 Samuel 23:20,21, we read about Benaiah who followed a lion down into a pit on a snowy day. That’s what it says in the Bible and I’m not going to spoil the ending. Amen.