We All Have Wrong Motivations
Analysis Paralysis, Writer’s Block, And The Science Behind Creating From Anxiety
I saw a post recently from some Christian art page that said something about “creating from a place of peace and rest.” I laughed and thought to myself, “That must be nice.”
Most of the Psalms are not created “from a place of peace and rest.” Those entries make up the punctuation, while the body of work comes from some fairly significant shish-kebabs-hitting-the-fan moments. Lament is actually the largest grouping (60 of the 150 Psalms are classified as lament. All of them except the Black Psalm—Psalm 88—end in praise. The Black Psalm is so depressing that it leaves you wondering if the writer took a bath with a toaster straight after).
Paul has an entire corpus, dubbed The Prison Epistles by scholars, that is written in shackles. And the tone is a strange cocktail of emotions.
Paul is triumphant and yet anxious. He’s laser focused, tho.
In 2 Corinthians 1:8 he admits to being so miserable at times he “despaired of life itself.” That’s some pretty heavy vulnerability.
He talks about having anxiety about the Church (2 Cor 11:28).
Jeremiah, called the weeping prophet, and the author of 1 and 2 Kings, Jeremiah, and Lamentations (a pretty significant body of work), was pretty much a basket case.
I don’t know what kind of Zen crack those Christian content creators are smoking, but must be nice.
For the rest of us, creating in lack and angst is just another day in paradise.
Man I’ve never made art from any kind of peace. I don’t write books having all my crap together on the topic. I wrote Hearing God because I needed to hear God lol.
Ambition is healthy.
In fact, it’s super healthy. Another reason I wrote Hearing God was because I was broke. I had never written a book before—how dare I! I didn’t have any followers on social media, nobody knew who I was, and the publishers weren’t sure why they were working on this.
But I put myself out there.
You know what I just won’t tolerate anymore tho? The motivation police. You ever seen this people online, lecturing everybody on all the healing they need to do before they do X,Y,Z. Man if God only used healed, whole, humble, and holy people, He’d never use anybody.
Brian Johnson comically remarked to me one day, “As if any of us got into platform ministry for the right reasons.”
Spot-freaking-on.
We’re all in this for the wrong reasons and the right reasons. Absolutely nobody has Fiji gushing out of their side when pierced except Christ Himself. The rest of us are full of piss and blood.
Doing it for the right reasons—give me a break. Read the freaking book of Jonah. Better yet—listen to Tim Keller masterfully preach on it, or buy his book.
Some of these people think they are God’s gift to the ministry. What I know is this: every moment I stand on a platform or help anybody with anything ministry related, it is a total honor and privilege that I don’t deserve. I know that in me no good thing dwells. I can’t believe some of my thoughts at times—even when I’m about to minister! It’s humbling and keeps me running to Jesus. Because I fail!
Now I’m not saying you don’t grow in your posture and attitudes—but absolutely nobody has arrived at the right spirit.
So this next sentence is for someone that is waiting to get all their garbage together before doing something awesome for God: forget it, you’ll never be able to dance hard enough for God anyways—just do awesome stuff for God now.
You should be ambitious for good and Godly things. God’s first words to humanity were, “Be Fruitful and Multiply.”
I was in a conversation with a lady last week and we were talking about rewards in Heaven—she said she wasn’t doing it for the rewards, only so that she could lay her crown before Christ. I told her I was absolutely doing it for the rewards because Jesus said to lay up treasure in heaven. Lol. We’re both right.
I’m not gonna stop saying that until we are all ok with people working whatever gift God has put in their hands with all their might, even with the motivation of being rewarded.
God is a Rewarder—duh.
Paul says to Timothy, “If any man desires the office of a bishop, he desires a good thing.” You should want it—you should be wanting to grow in your influence and affluence in Kingdom things.
Stop playing these Millennial / Gen Z games about pretending not to want success.
So dumb.
The fake humility is so thick on socials.
Admit that you want to own a house one day. Check your skill set. Stretch yourself. Bring your chaotic, anxiety-filled self to the work bench every morning.
And read this little study I put together on how to make your anxiety work for you.
Some of you have crippling anxiety that bottlenecks your creative output. You’re Martha, worried about many things (the Greek word for anxiety literally means “many pieces”—Jesus tells Martha she is many things about many things. He’s such a freak communicator!). You’re waiting for somebody’s permission that will never give it; you’re waiting to be awesome at it; you’re waiting for the right timing; you’re waiting for Christ to descend in Louis Vuitton and audibly command you; you’re waiting for the right resources; you’re waiting for the next step. Stop that. Start now.
And here’s what the Pyschologists are calling the workaround to your anxiety paralysis:
