I am reading a book called The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life that has a lot of good things to say about creativity, hard work, and the link between the two.  For those who thought that creativity was some gift that came to those who sat around and waited, the first chapter reminds the reader that Mozart (after whom my small beagle is named, but after whom he does not take in his work habits) had deformed fingers by the time that he was in his early twenties from practicing the piano so frequently.  Those of us who watched the movie Amadaus may have thought that Mozart’s talent was simply a gift, and it was certainly a gift, but it was a gift that he worked very hard to hone and use well.

At the end of the first chapter, Thyla Tharp (the author) tells the story of a writer named Paul Auster.  When Auster was a child his parents took him to a NY Giants game.  After the game, waiting outside the clubhouse the great outfielder Willie Mays came out to make his way home.  Auster quietly made his way up to Mays and asked for an autograph.  Mays said “Sure, sure kid.  You got a pencil?” Try as they might neither Auster’s parents nor he could come up with a pencil.  Auster went home without an autograph, but vowed never in his life to be caught again without a pencil.  That, he tells his children, is why he became a writer, because he never left home without a writing utensil.

This leads me to my point (and I do have one).  What is your pencil?  What is it that is so much a part of you that you should never leave the house without it?  What has God gifted you with in such a way that you should work on it all of the time?  For me it is the Scripture.  My life has been spent, in one way or another, studying the text of the Bible.  I don’t leave home without it.  It is on my phone, my IPod and almost always in my brief case.  The study and teaching of the Scripture is what God made me to do.  What about you?

What is your pencil?

DrSamLam