David Lee Martin

My family lived in London for 11 years. Our house was so close to the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Club that each year when the famous Tennis tournament took place you could hear the uproarious cheers from our back garden.

It was exciting to hear and thrilling to watch. The entire area came alive for the weeks of Wimbledon with hundreds of thousands of tennis fans flooding our small London suburb.

One of the defining marks of the elite athletes was their powerful, accurate serve.

The same is true in creative business.

How strong is your serve?

How well do you know your target market? How well defined and accurate is your service? Do you understand the pains they are experiencing with regard to the solutions you are offering? Do you know the joy that they seek and have set before them?

Creative life, especially when we are talking about vocational Christian entrepreneurship, is a life of service to others.

As a Christian artist, author, entrepreneur – someone bringing personal value to the world’s table – what you offer is more than a commodity. Commodities compete on cost alone, but you bring something priceless into the arena, something that places you in a company of one – yourself!

In the same way as the remarkable men and women on the Wimbledon courts, your serve is honed through practice. Practice your serve. Put yourself out there and help some people.

Prove that you can help people by helping them.

Don’t just speak about your strong serve, step onto the court and take some swings.

As you do you’ll improve your game, and inevitably improve your impact and income as a result. It’s the only way to play.

You are called to compete, in the best and most noble sense of the word, not compare. Comparisons are fruitless. Compete with yourself each day. Look for ways to improve your serve.

Hebrews 10:24 encourages us to encourage each other, spurring one another on to love and good works.

I especially like the Message translation which reads,

“Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging…”

What better way to exercise our creativity than inventing ways to spur our brothers and sisters to excel in their commitment to change the world!

The biggest grand slam you’ll ever play in is the purpose of God.

Let’s play to win!

You won’t find your voice sitting under a tree waiting for it fall on you like an apple. That’s not the way the creative dynamic works. The only way to truly discover your voice is to start using it.

It might be with brush and paint, mic and music, film or fabric, word and page, the form is flexible – the key thing is to be willing to experiment. Trying new things, and don’t back off.

Like any language, the language of the heart is something we learn to express. Initially, our creative swipes may miss the mark, or merely brush what’s possible. But as you hone your gift, and use your voice to bring value to others, your heart, hand, mind, and mouth will harmonize. What you hold inside will translate with greater clarity, and the message will be sharpened to penetrate deeper than the surface.

No man or woman begins with the pantry fully stocked. Even Jesus had to grow in wisdom and stature.

“And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” (Luke 2:52 KJV)

Early-stage entrepreneurship is a battlefield strewn with abandoned dreams because the first faltering steps often lead to scuffed knees and bruised egos. Grand dreams smash hard into reality and it quickly becomes obvious that there’s more to this call to freedom than high hopes.

The antidote to discouragement then, and now, can be summed up in one word.

Action.

Do your way through. Keep making, keep believing, keep the joy set before you whatever you may endure in the season.

While we might be in the business of building a business, God is in the business of honing character. He chisels stalwart character as we work the rock face and discover just how much we’ve got to bring. The challenges will cause the freedom devotee to dig deeper still until a vast subterranean well opens up. Beneath the ton of dust that is our humanity, a living river flows. Your divine call and vocation bubbles far below the surface, and with every swing of the spade you dig towards the day when you’ll strike something remarkable, and the gusher flows freely from your inner man.

You are a spirit. Inside is a fountain of life poised and prepared to bring deliverance to many.

Your creative life and call are all part of this greater purpose, and the songs you sing, the words you write, the pictures you paint, the videos you make, are all slivers of light breaking forth from that inner cavern.

Keep digging. One more article. One more song. Another encouraging word.

Your voice may be hidden right now. It might be muffled under layers of questions.

But as you commit to consistently arrive on the doorstep of the world and make your thoughts and dreams known, the questions will be swept to the floor, and new doors will open.

You are a creator.

Make something today and make no apology.

We are all on a journey toward discovering ourselves, and even you will be amazed at how remarkable you are when that river breaks through the noise and the beauty of the new creation pours through your being to bless the world.

You have the right to write, to make your thoughts known and share you message. No permission is needed, no grand gesture from Heaven is required. The day to start letting your thoughts find their stride and move outside your head is today.

The right to write
Put to flight the fears
Write the right things
Give truth and justice wings

Innards into outards
Unsaid into song
The music of the heart-man
Has waited far too long

Streaking naked on the page
Black birds on a brightened sky
Bringing messages and marvels
Lifting heads and hearts on high

A mark, a scratch, a dot, a dash
Line on line you light the match
A fire jumps from head to heart
Your voice’s echo is just the start

Write my friend,
With no excuse
Say no to naysay
And squeeze the juice

Your words bring worlds
Spilling super on the spread
The wonder is unleashed to run
What needs to seed is soundly said!

When asked what’s the only thing you need, a Christian naturally answers, “Jesus”, “God”, or “the Holy Spirit”. All or any of these answers seem absolutely right and holy, but Jesus disagrees.

He plainly stated, “…your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” (Matthew 6:32 NKJV)

“All these things.”

Apparently we need something more than heaven’s air. There are some down and dirty necessities that demand our attention.

The things the world is desperately chasing. The outer life and the inner life’s cravings. All of them bidding for your energy and attention. Each one of them insisting that they are necessary, important, and urgent.

The devil also deals in things. Showing Jesus the kingdoms of the world, he hissed, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” (Matthew 4:9 NKJV)

“All these things.”

Things.

Thankfully Jesus has an antidote to the anxiety that the pursuit of things stirs up.

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33 NKJV)

“All these things.”

The problems arise when we allow things to have us, rather than us having things.

Disentangling from the frantic climb of pride and discovering deep contentment in God’s provision is not the norm. Even in our walk as believers, we can fall under the mesmerizing spell of money and all that it can offer.

It’s important to guard your heart and life, and in the unrelenting bombardment we face today in a never-off culture there’s rarely been a time when full focus on the freedom Jesus offers has been so needed.

Kingdom living is abundant living.

“All these things” are on the table and in the contract.

The devil has his attache case open and pen in hand, offering the world’s kingdoms in exchange for your time and attention. Time and attention are the currency he seeks, bowing at the world’s altar as we pant for its prizes.

Jesus too has a contract, a covenant that will never be broken, full of better, richer promises than any that has ever been offered before. It also includes “all these things” that the world is seeking. In God’s economy, they are added as a side benefit. The main offer is a Kingdom, abundant life here and into eternity.

Which table you sidle up to each day is your choice. Where you place your trust and sow your time is not forced.

Don’t fall for the siren call of satan and his meager rewards. Even the richest returns the world can offer are dung and dust compared to the slightest taste of God’s loving provision!

Listening today I heard someone say, “Busyness is a bid to gain artificial significance.”

We falsely think because we are busy, busy, busy we are important or significant.

But there’s a massive difference between busyness and business. In fact, one of the strategies of the devil is to so fill our cup with cares and furious pursuits we expend all our energy chasing the wind.

“…he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High” (Daniel 7:25 KJV)

Busy is not badge of honor, and God’s pace is not frantic. His fullness comes from a place where we have ceased from our own efforts and we are drawing our energy from the well of faith in our inner man.

When was the last time you stopped and asked the Lord what needs to be shaved from your schedule to make more time for Him?

I can find myself sometimes with a knot of anxiety in my stomach, feeling overwhelmed by the many things I think I need to tend to. It’s like the garden of my mind has overgrown with a thousand weeds overnight and my peace is being choked by the idea that all of the items on the self-made to-do list are equally important.

Of course, in the big picture, few (and dare I say none) of the needs that press for attention are really life-threatening.

Sometimes we have to back off from our own sense of self-importance and recognize that God is the One fighting our battles for us. We are His servants, extending and representing His Kingdom, not building our own empire.

May His grace guide you in peace as you conduct yourself here on earth, and may your focus remain true to your values, not being derailed by the world’s ideas of what’s really valuable.

One of my favorite prayers in the Bible is found in Philippians:

“So that you may surely learn to sense what is vital, and approve and prize what is excellent and of real value [recognizing the highest and the best, and distinguishing the moral differences], and that you may be untainted and pure and unerring and blameless [so that with hearts sincere and certain and unsullied, you may approach] the day of Christ [not stumbling nor causing others to stumble].” (Philippians 1:10 AMP)

If your heart is troubled and you are weighed down with many inconsequential things (in the big scheme) it may be that you have lost sight of what is really vital, and have inadvertently put your eyes on a prize that can’t deliver what you are seeking.

The things of real value are not something you can buy or trade.

In the words of Ryan Nicodemus and Joshua Fields Millburn, AKA The Minimalists, Love People, Use Things: Because the Opposite Never Works .

Never get so caught in the sticky web of busyness that you forget WHY you are working.