In our first issue we began exploring talent through articles and interviews, asking talented people where they believe their talent comes from. We also began encouraging you—the talented reader—to step out in those talents.

Design: Clint Fisher

Prelude

How can we make these steps practical and tangible? I think a good place to start is at the beginning, and by beginning I mean the very beginning.

What an awesome statement. Let's break that down a bit.

"In the beginning God...."

God is the beginning of everything. So before anything, there was God. That alone blows my mind, but before I risk losing the rest of the mind that I have left let's continue with our breakdown.

"In the beginning God created.."

Ok, this is starting to look artistic now. So here we have God existing before the beginning, and now deciding to make something. This one sentence is so inspiring to me as an artist because in all the paintings I have done, drawings, designs, web sites, whatever it was that I was about to make I had the desire to make it.

Something deep down inside of me has not only the desire, but the need to create. It is a primal urge that resides at the very core, or shall I say the "beginning" of my being.

So here we have God as Creator, the Artist, the Great Architect with a desire and yes a need to create. What did God do next?

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

He's not only in the zone, He is the zone. Have you ever been doing your thing and you are hitting on all cylinders, almost as if everything you do just works, you are in the flow.

Just take a look at an amazing sunset, sunrise or a peacock as some examples of God getting His groove on.

I say all of that to say– this is where our talent comes from, this is the beginning of our desire and need to create as creatives.

Appropriation

Ok, cool stuff but you still haven't shown us how this applies to real life.

Sticking with our same inspirational sentence: "In the beginning God..." we can extrapolate that when we are going to begin something it should begin with God.

Let's say for an example you have a desire to paint. As we saw earlier, that desire started with God giving you the desire to paint. Why? It's a gift that was given for no other reason than God deciding to give it to you because He wanted to.

Continuing with that remember that God is purposeful, He does things with a purpose in mind. What is that purpose? We need to ask Him.

1) Once you have identified a desire to do something, you need to ask God what to do with that desire.

Instead of just automatically going off to do something, stop.

2) Thank God for that desire.

Let God know you appreciate it and recognize it as a gift, just like you would any other gift that someone gives you. The person giving you the gift gets fulfillment seeing that it brings you joy in receiving it.

3) Listen

You've asked and thanked, now it's time to listen.

In some other situations, this may just be the beginning of a process that God is starting with you. It's important to show God that you recognize Him at work in your creative life and that you are waiting and in expectation of a response from Him. It is extremely important to be in expectation, this shows God that you trust Him and also of equal importance, are relying on His direction.

4) Take prayerful action

By prayerful action I mean that when you begin to develop your talent with the Lord you might have a feeling of what you should do. I have found it beneficial in times like this to first acknowledge that gut feeling to Him, and then let Him know that you plan to act on it. But as you are praying this, ask that if this is not part of His direction that He stop it and redirect you.

My experience with this has been very beneficial, I think what it does for me, is it gets me moving and at the same time it shows God that I'm willing to act. I found myself many times in the past praying for direction, and hindsight has shown me that He answered the prayer and what was left for me to do was to take action on it and get over the fear of "is this God, or is this me".

This can be a very tricky area which is why I say to take "prayerful" action.

5) Don't be afraid to make mistakes

This one is so important I can't stress it enough. Once you start using your talents prayerfully, at times you may feel completely lost. Don't worry it's natural, after all, you are in unchartered territory sometimes, but be encouraged that it's better to go for it and mess up than to be intimidated and not act.

Also, remember friends, that God is our Father. Remember what it was like to ride a bicycle for the first time? I remember how painful it was when I crashed and how hard I cried, but more importantly, I remember my Dad there to pick me up and get me back on that bike again.

Also be encouraged to know that you can relax in your talents, they are there purposefully, that's why you hear so many creatives that say if they didn't do x, y or z they have no idea what they would do, it's all they know.

Indeed, and that desire and need to create was from the beginning.

Recap

1. Once you have identified a desire to do something, you need to ask God what to do with that desire.
2. Thank God for that desire.
3. Listen.
4. Take prayerful action.
5. Don't be afraid to make mistakes.