I know there have been many curses upon Daylight Savings time over the last few days. Most of those curses by parents of small children who must adjust to the time change. Yet, I know many adults who willingly and dare I say, unwisely decided to take advantage of this annual opportunity for extra sleep to stay up an extra hour. What were these people thinking?
I’m a music minister. Sundays start very early for me and last all day without much mercy in the schedule. I’m usually at the church building by 7:30 booting computers and projectors and prepping for rehearsals. What makes it worse week in and week out is the fact that I’m a night person coupled with anticipation of the next day, so Saturday nights I usually average 4-5 hours of sleep before a very long day. This is not a complaint, just fun facts. This past Sunday after a crazy Saturday, early bed time, and time change I got a whopping 7 and a half hours of sleep. This is huge for me.
I showed up Sunday morning a few minutes earlier than normal. I was peppy and cheerful. Most people who see be before 10:00 on any day of the week know that is a major change in me, but I was ready for the day. In addition to my regular routine, I also lead a Bible study with college on Sunday mornings between rehearsal and worship service. Yep. It’s a long day.
Sunday I was overly excited to teach, to lead worship, to worship, run a marathon. You name it, I was ready.
As the morning progressed, I kept encountering people that had lost sleep due to little ones or enjoying another hour awake and their energy was drained. So much so that my energy and excitement began to drain.
I had so much mental energy already invested into the morning, but the lack of energy surrounding me was sucking it up. By the end of the day I was discouraged and wondered why my creative and mental investments meant so much to me, but did not connect others the same way.
DISCLAIMER: I am not saying because I did not get the response I wanted, things were not effective. That is a work of God and I don’t have to worry about that. Secondly, I am not talking about a “people-pleasing” effort where people apparently did not “like me” because I did not get the response I wanted. Both of those ideas are sinful, ungodly, unhealthy and unfruitful.
What I am asking for us all is, how do respond when we have invested our mental energy and creative ideas and they seem to not connect to everyone? You develop any type of idea and other people just don’t get it.
One of the brutal realities of creativity is when ideas come to life they do not impact everyone. Like the picture below, we think our ideas are big enough to support everyone, but the reality is our ideas are often more like the horses. We come up short.
I want to encourage you. Don’t give up. I think most of us create or innovate thinking our idea will finally cure humanity once and for all with this simple idea. Those ideas are out there and they do happen. But we must remember, God didn’t even create the earth all at once. It was progressive. Elements of creation came to be in order to support the next step. Things fell into place to support the next idea and the next.
If you don’t feel like your ideas are connecting, it’s not a time to be discouraged or give up. It’s a time to get back to work. The next step may be the connecting point. And if not, maybe it’s the next step. Or the next.
Don’t give, my friends. The next project, idea, or effort is just as valuable as the previous. The impact of creativity is usually not measured in single ideas, but by ongoing beauty and benefits from our ideas.
Go do it again.
Questions for you today…
- How do you know when your idea has connected with someone?
- How do you respond when you feel like your idea has not connected?
- Do you have a flow or rhythm when ideas develop best for you?
