On Making Things

In the beginning, God made. That is the first thing we know about Him: He is a maker. And we, who are made in His image, are makers too — instinctively, incorrigibly, across every culture and era and circumstance.

We make songs and stories and meals and buildings and gardens. We make friendships and families. We make meaning out of the raw material of our experience. We cannot help it. It is written into the code of who we are because it is written into the character of the One who made us.

I have come to believe that making things — truly attending to the making of them, bringing whatever skill and care and imagination I have to the work — is a form of worship. Not in a vague metaphorical sense, but genuinely: when I make something with attention and love, I am participating in the creative nature of God. I am, in some small way, reflecting back what He has placed in me.

This is true whether you are a writer or a cook or a teacher or a gardener. The making matters. The attention you bring to the making matters. The love you pour into what your hands produce is not wasted — it is received by the One who gave you hands and imagination and the deep human need to make.

Make something today. Make it with care. And let it be your prayer.