The Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast

Kaley Olson:
Hi, friends. Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast, where we share biblical Truth for any girl in any season. I'm your host, Kaley Olson. And I'm here with my friend and cohost, Meredith Brock.

Meredith Brock:
Well, hey, Kaley.

Kaley Olson:
Hey, Meredith. How are you doing today?

Meredith Brock:
I'm doing pretty fantastic.

Kaley Olson:
That's great.

Meredith Brock:
Yeah.

Kaley Olson:
That's great. Can I tell you a secret?

Meredith Brock:
Yep.

Kaley Olson:
You remember last week, whenever you told me about this nail glue that you stick under fake nails. I did it and they look great.

Meredith Brock:
OK. Little fashion tip for the ladies today.

Kaley Olson:
There you go.

Meredith Brock:
I don't get my nails done at the salon. I don't have time for that. I have three kids.

Kaley Olson:
And who has the budget for that all the time.

Meredith Brock:
And gosh, my word.

Kaley Olson:
That's expensive.

Meredith Brock:
It really adds up. Go to your local drug store, get yourself the Kiss brand press on nails. They’re $8. They got them at the Walgreens and then use the brush on glue with ... They stick for two weeks, guys. It's my secret. It's my personal fashion secret.

Kaley Olson:
Yes.

Meredith Brock:
I'm into it.

Kaley Olson:
And if you're really hard on your nails, like I am, this is great.

Meredith Brock:
These babies ain't coming off.

Kaley Olson:
It's amazing. Well, I like random tips like that. You know where you can get random tips like that and facts?

Meredith Brock:
Where, Kaley?

Kaley Olson:
From us in the podcast newsletter. That makes me laugh so much saying that because at Proverbs, we do have biblical content and we share biblical Truth for any girl in any season. But we have a monthly newsletter called The Proverbs 31 Podcast Insider, where I write once a month, a little introduction …

Meredith Brock:
That's right.

Kaley Olson:
… what we're loving at Proverbs.

Meredith Brock:
Yeah.

Kaley Olson:
What you can find on the podcast coming up, what's coming up on the Therapy & Theology Podcast. And sometimes I share random things in there, like maybe how to save your nails.

Meredith Brock:
And your budget.

Kaley Olson:
And your budget. Or why Meredith might not like donuts, which that was in the last podcast newsletter.

Meredith Brock:
That's true.

Kaley Olson:
But it's a really fun piece of content that comes out once a month, and it's absolutely free. And you can subscribe today by going to the link in our show notes at proverbs31.org/listen.

Meredith Brock:
That is right. Well, in today's episode, you'll hear from a new friend to the podcast, but one that's not new to the ministry. Her name is Rachel Marie Kang, and she's one of the Contributing Authors for our Daily Devotions. But speaking of devotions, if you haven't subscribed yet to get our free, every single day of the week, encouragement, biblical encouragement sent straight to your inbox — what are you waiting for? Come on. Go subscribe at our website. That's proverbs31.org. You can't miss it. All right, friends. Enough from me and Kaley. Let's jump into our conversation with Rachel.

Kaley Olson:
All right, friends. We are so excited to get to spend some time today with our new friend, Rachel Marie Kang in the studio, today. Welcome Rachel.

Rachel Marie Kang:
Hey, I'm happy to be here.

Kaley Olson:
I got it right. I got your name right.

Rachel Marie Kang:
You did. You got it right.

Kaley Olson:
But there's a couple of things that our friends need to know about you, Rachel, is that your official name is Rachel Marie as an author. But now that we're all friends, it's just Rachel.

Rachel Marie Kang:
Call me Rachel.

Kaley Olson:
So, from here on out, it's Rachel. If I had a Southern name, it would be Kaley Beth, because my full name is Kaley Elizabeth. Meredith, do you have a Southern name?
Meredith Brock:
Nope.

Kaley Olson:
No.

Meredith Brock:
There's not a whole lot Southern about me, Kaley. Not that I don't like the south, but it's just really nowhere running through these veins.

Kaley Olson:
I know. Meredith doesn't really lend itself to a double name.

Meredith Brock:
No.

Kaley Olson:
I don't feel like it.

Meredith Brock:
No.

Kaley Olson:
But that's OK.

Meredith Brock:
Yeah. That's OK.

Kaley Olson:
Mer is fine.

Meredith Brock:
Mer works.

Kaley Olson:
There you go.

Meredith Brock:
Well, Rachel is one of our Contributing Authors for our Daily Devotions and is here in-person, which is so lovely because for so long, we've been recording virtually. So, it's so nice to have her here in-person looking at her eyeball to eyeball. But Rachel, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

Rachel Marie Kang:
Absolutely. Well, I'm just so glad to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, so I live locally. I am in the Charlotte area, but I am born and raised in New York. So moved down about eight years now.

Kaley Olson:
Wow.

Rachel Marie Kang:
Got my husband, my two kids. And really have just been trying to figure out the last couple of years, this writing life. So, in the midst of motherhood, in the midst of friendship, community, all these things that converge, I like to say that I'm a writer of prose, poems and pieces. And I stumbled upon that because I always found it hard to just nail it down to one thing. I've always tried different things, songs … And now we're blogging and Instagram post, there's all these different things. Yeah, that's how I introduce myself. I've got this new book coming out, Let There Be Art. And everyone asks me how I'm feeling about it. And here's the thing, I'm ready to let it go. It's been two years. I wrote this thing. I held this thing. I cradled it so long. And now I just want it out into the world and in people's hands.

Kaley Olson:
Yeah. That's awesome. Meredith, we know a lot about what it's like to release books out into the world. What is it that Lysa always says before she releases a book? That it's like standing —

Meredith Brock:
In front of everyone naked?

Rachel Marie Kang:
That's good.

Kaley Olson:
Can't get more real than that.

Rachel Marie Kang:
Yeah, it's true.

Kaley Olson:
But it is true. You put your heart and your soul into a message and you're ready to let it go. But I do know it's a very long process and that's why you're here today, is to talk with us about how to unleash the creativity within you. So now, it's your turn.

Rachel Marie Kang:
Thank you. Well, I'm just so excited to be here talking about this one thing that is honestly my biggest passion in my life. And I'm really excited to share why it's my biggest passion, but how also it's become just a vessel for experiencing community. And that's why it's become really important to me. So, before I talk about how we're going to unleash the creativity within us, I want to talk about why. Why?
So, why does creativity even matter to me? Well, long story short, when I was a teenager, I guess I had a lot of feelings. I had a lot of thoughts. I had a lot of wonderings. I had a lot of fears. I had a lot of anger, a lot of sadness, a lot of bitterness, a lot of questions. And so I turned to writing, I turned to the piano. I turned to music, writing my own songs, recording my own songs, penning poems in private places. I turned to these things to find an exhale.

And so in that I discovered that doing these things, it wasn't just for me, it was not only that, but it was a pathway to God and it was a pathway to other people. And so that's why it matters to me. It matters to me that I wrote this book that I talk about these things. So why do we want to unleash the creativity within ourselves? Because we can, right? There is this unspoken rule/lie that you have to be an elite person to partake in creativity, to make art. That you have to be a celebrity, that you have to be a famous actor or painter or movie script writer or poet, all these things. The list goes on. That you have to be well known and that you have to be well versed in order to partake in creativity. And that's just not true. It is something that invites all of us by way of even the most simplest things that we can do. I'll talk a little bit more about that later.

Why else do we want to unleash the creativity within us? Because it's cathartic. Like I shared about my story, it is a way to release your emotions and to experience release. There is something so calm and something so freeing about singing a song that maybe you didn't write, reading a poem that expresses exactly how you feel. Painting with watercolor. Taking a walk outside in nature and journaling about that time. All these different things lend themselves to us so that we can experience exhale. And this next point, this has really become my favorite and probably the one that I've had to most be intentional about, in terms of recognizing and embracing. But another reason as to why we want to unleash the creativity within us is because creativity is communal.

We see this in our lives and we see this in how God creates. I love in Genesis Chapter 1, I'll just read this really quickly. We all know the story. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (Genesis 1:1-2, NIV). And you jump down just a little bit to verse 26. It says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’" (Genesis 1:26, NIV). Then God said, “‘Let us make mankind …’” That is a communal moment of creativity where God, the Father, the Holy Spirit and the Son together, they are in that moment while this beautiful earth is being created and set forth into motion. But also, we have John Chapter 1 verse 1.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things were made; without him, nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:1-5, NIV). I think for a lot of my life, I've heard we can be creative because God is creative. And that is so true. But I think I've always found myself a little bit desperate to cling onto something tangible, something that really just, I don't know, invites you to experience creativity or life beyond yourself. And I will say, this is part of my testimony is ... Well, let me just start here. I am an introvert. I am the most introverted person that there is.

And so for me, creating and writing poems and writing songs and writing poems, all these things that started in my youth, it was a way for me to heal and exhale. But also to hide and also to just pull away from the world and give myself what I thought I needed. And so this idea when I started to see in a sense that, wait, wait a minute, creativity gives us a chance to engage with community, to engage with other people, to engage with God. I really started to hinge on that truth. And that became a really, really strong emphasis even in my book, the makeup of it. I have poems featured from writers, from people in my online creative community. People that would say themselves, "I'm not famous. I'm not a writer. I shouldn't have my work published. I'm not ready. I'm not there yet."

And so creativity is communal and that is a huge reason why we should unleash it from within us. So how? This all sounds really good, but how do we do this? And hopefully you catch my drift here, I'm giving some specific words that, I feel, like words really, really help me when I have something to remember and solidify my thoughts. So, I've got these words and they all start with the letter a, got some alliteration here, so if that helps anyone remember then great. But how do we release this creativity within us? Well, first we can remember creativity is accessible. Accessible, it's accessible. And all that takes is paying attention, using what you have and using what you already know. And I say this as a woman who is in the thick of motherhood, I have two boys. One is four, a very curious boy, going on five.

And the other is maybe 18 months or two somewhere in between. I don't know, but we all know how that feels like it's just a blur. And I find myself in this season of just being overwhelmed with having to care for these kids, having to care with my body, which is changing. And to be quite honest, is broken. I have a diagnosis that I'm learning to live with. And so I find myself asking if life is constantly changing. If things are different, if money is changing, how is creativity accessible? We can pay attention. When we are out on walks and we see beauty, that is partaking in creativity. That is having a creative perspective. When you're at home and you're with your kids and they are making messes because they are having fun and they're telling stories, and they are using their imaginations. We can jump into that. We can partake in that and it is so accessible. It doesn't have to look like releasing a book or starting a podcast or having a cooking show. These things are right here in front of us.

And so that goes along with my next point, which is that creativity is available. It's right there in front of us. And it is not for the elite. It is for every single one of us. And probably one thing to think about in terms of that … because a lot of times we may look at others and we may think, "Well, I can't do that, or I don't have that." And so then it becomes this issue of how can you look at what you have and how can you be grateful with what you have and content with where you are? Creativity is available to you. You just might have to shift the way that you're seeing it. And you just might have to shift the way that you are looking into other people's lives and seeing what they're using. They might have a different job. They might have different resources than you. You might have different resources from someone else. How can we change our perspective there, and look to see that it is available, that we don't need the college degree, that we don't need a hundred thousand followers on Instagram that you can start right now, right here?
This next point is probably my favorite and the one that I have been harping on for the last year. And I hope that I continue to harp on this point. I really want it to make it my life's purpose to speak into the reality of the seasonality of creativity in and through all of our lives. This next point is accept your season, accept your season. Seasons don't always remain. Bodies, finances, careers and capacities change, but we can adapt and we can change. We can learn new skills. We can bring back old ones. We can see this in Jesus' life. Jesus embraced different creativities according to His different seasons. He had His creative trade, which I know that there's different thoughts out there, was He a carpenter? What was it for sure? We know that He made things, right? And He made wine. He multiplied food. I wish I could do that in my kitchen. He told parables, He healed lives with spit and mud. He was with God for the creation of the world, and He participated in a creative and redemptive plan to bring salvation. Hear that: He was not only just there for the creation of the world, but He participated in a plan to save this world, a wildly innovative creative plan to think, I'm going to send my son to save this world.

That is crazy. That is beyond thought. That is wildly imaginative for God to think that, and Jesus participated in that. And so even there, it's a creative solution. And so I just really strongly, I just want to speak to the woman who is dealing with a diagnosis. I want to speak to the woman who, her life has changed because her kids have left home. I want to speak to the woman who has lost her job and her finances are going downhill, are drained. When these things change, we tend to mourn them and grieve them. And we should. But along with that, we also try to mourn and grieve the existence of creativity. And I actually don't think we always need to do that, again to these earlier points that I've made. Sometimes it just looks like shifting our perspective, accepting your season and seeing that if your body has changed, how can I write now? How can I write differently?

And I explore this in one of the chapters in my book. I really share my story and I don't withhold any detail. But I share a little bit of my journey writing this book and how it came mid-2020, year raging wild with the pandemic and racial tensions. And here I am getting signed to my first book deal. And I myself, my body is waging its own war. I'm walking through this diagnosis that it took a while to get to. And I write in one of my chapters, how I actually wrote out that chapter using a dictation app. How cool is that? How wildly cool is that? When my hands were hurting, I could still write.

And I think it's small things like that. If we just tilt our perspective, if we try a new tool, if we try something different, we really can partake. It might look different. It might be hard. There might be a learning curve. We might find ourselves even drifting towards a new creative medium, something that lends itself to us a little bit better in the current season that we're in, but these things are possible.

And my last point is, don't create alone. That word “alone.” Don't create alone. For so many years, I hid myself. And there were times where I do feel that there was a safety in the pocket that I made for myself. I was releasing hard realities, but I got stuck there. And I had to learn how to open that door again, to let others in, to let them see me in that mess as I'm trying to figure things out, as I'm questioning God, as I'm working through my faith, working through the scriptures, working through the cards that life has dealt me. And so I say this because it's actually quite easy for us to not create alone. There are groups out there and there are communities and we are surrounded by people. Join groups, create art or partake of art together with others. In this, we learn to walk with other people and we learn to worship our loving God.
So how do we start now? This is probably a question that a lot of people might be asking, because a lot of this again, it sounds great, it sounds good. But how do we take that first step? Here's a thought I'm coming back with those A words.

Adjust the way that you define creativity. I think there are a lot of people that would admit that watching a movie is not considered a part of creativity like practicing creativity. And I used to think that myself too, and I do think that there's a fine line. We need to walk this line of, when am I just consuming and consuming too much? But then when am I actually watching a movie or reading a book and having intentional dialogue with this work that is before me asking myself questions, processing it, considering the characters. So, there's definitely a fine line, I think sometimes. But when you watch a movie, when you read a book, when you read a magazine, when you take a master class, even when you're on the sidelines, you are participating in the practice of creativity, you are being shown by someone else what it looks like to write a story with characters that are going in and out of conflict and courage. You are reading a book that has structure and ideas and strategy. And when you do these things, you are learning from other people, you are learning for your own life, and you might even be inspired to have ideas around the things that you want to create.

So, all of this counts, all of this counts. I tend to say a lot to those that I coach and that I help them cultivate creativity in their lives. I say, “Your contemplation counts.” Your contemplation counts. And that goes for the times when you are in your car and you are driving and you are thinking about that fiction character that you want to create, or that pattern that you want to crochet, or that movie that you dream of writing and you're not sure if it's ever going to happen, but you are thinking about those characters. Why? Why do these things matter to you? Why is it so important for you to think about these things?

Another thing that I also think too, this is just probably something that is like this eternal struggle that we are all going to find ourselves in and out of seasons working through. But allow yourself to pursue creativity even when it's unseen. Allow yourself to pursue creativity even when it's unseen. We have the pressure of social media, but I don't think we can always just blame social media because even before that, we've always struggled. We will always struggle with this idea of, “I need it to be seen to be important.” So, whether it's social media, whether it's a stage, it doesn't matter what it is. There's always just going to be that eternal battle of it's not important unless someone else sees it or validates it. And that is just a lie. It is a lie. I think that it is important to have those seasons where we do spend that time alone. We do craft and cultivate things in the unseen.

Why? Because in those matters ... Why? Because in those moments it is God who is with us. It is God who is watching us. It is God who is healing our hearts, cultivating compassion inside of our hearts for the people that we know and the people that we don't know and the people that we don't understand and the frustrations of life. All of this and more is what gets cultivated in those unseen seasons. And they are important and they matter more than any published book, more than any post that goes viral because that's the state of our souls. And that is what our God is concerned for. He loves us so much, and He cares for us so much, and He wants to be with us so much.

And when you are in that journal, writing out those entries, when you are in your room, on the bed with your guitar, picking it up for the first time in five months and getting those callouses again on your hand, and you are playing, not because you're going to press record on your phone, but because you just want to sing your favorite hymn, that's all. That's because God is with you in that moment. And He is forming you, and He is forming your ideas about Him, and He is remaking you. He is making you new, and He is making your faith come alive. So, you can start now. Maybe it looks like adjusting the way you define creativity within your circumstances, your capacity. And maybe it does for a season look like remaining unseen, but you can start now. And if you need help with that, I wrote a whole book about it, Let There Be Art. So, that's fun too.

Meredith Brock:
Rachel, that was beautiful. Thank you so much. I'm just sitting here reflecting on what your teaching is and I can't help but go back to the first thing that you said, and that’s “creativity is a source.” It's the thing, art should make you exhale. It's your exhale. And that just, this last point that you shared, that it really should be the thing that creates intimacy with God for you. And I think so many times when we define art or creativity, we think it has to be something that gets hung on the wall or that someone else is going to read, or that someone else is going to hear or any of that. And it's this consumer mentality. I'm not creating art. I'm not being creative unless someone else is going to see or consume it. And I actually have a little bit of a history with this.
So, I'll tell you guys a little bit of story, quite a few years ago in my twenties, that was many moons ago. I was working at a place and my superior sat me down in my eval and said to me, "Meredith, you have so much potential, but I really don't think you're a creative person. You need to stay in an admin role." And I took that and stamped it on me as very much like a label. And I can do some admin like nobody's business. I crush it.

Kaley Olson:
That's very true.

Meredith Brock:
I'm very logistically minded. That's how I am. But in my mind, I took that label and said, "Meredith, you're not a creative." Now, strangely enough, I am surrounded, what would be traditionally, I'm married to a super creative … I'm married to a songwriter. I'm surrounded by what would be called traditionally creative artists. Literally all my best friends, everybody in my life are these traditional creatives.

And so I carried the weight of that for a really long time feeling like, “Well, I’m just not one of them.” Like you said, the elite, I'm just not one of them. But the Lord really shifted something in me. It was in my mid-twenties when I took that label and kind of put it on myself. And I didn't like it. I didn't want to accept it. I didn't believe it. But I did. I took it and I was like, “Well, this person who said it to me was a super creative person.” And in my mind, I was like, “He knows better than me. He knows what a creative is and what’s not. So obviously I’m not.” So, I'm just going to ... But I wrestled with it, wrestled with it. And I remember going to the Lord with it and just being like, “Why did you give me these gifts then? And keep surrounding me by these people that are all traditional artists?” And as I really dove into that, I realized for me what creativity is, is creating order from chaos.

Kaley Olson:
Yeah.

Meredith Brock:
It is. I have learned over the years, I am an entrepreneur at heart. I love to ... Give me your problems and I will think of 150 different ways to deal with those problems, to overcome those problems, to build out creative problem-solving steps so that your art can be unleashed. And it took me a long time to wrestle that label off of me and say, "No, I am a super creative person." My husband, God bless his soul, you bring him a problem and he's going to go, "Hey babe, can you help me figure this out?" But can he write a song? Absolutely. And so my creativity looks like creative problem solving. And as I shook that label off of me, I actually found out I am actually really creative in other ways.

I'm very creative with my words. I absolutely can write. But because I took that label on me for so long and had to wrestle through that, I think it stifled some of those other areas that I was afraid to really walk into. I think about what's funny. Let's fast forward. This is just ironic, and isn't this how the Lord works. That label was put on me, I owned it in my mid-twenties, fast forward a few years. I started the Creative Department at Proverbs 31. I was the Creative Department at Proverbs 31, and I have built it now beyond anything we could have dreamed. I am a creative person. We all are. It's in our DNA. And whether that looks like building out a spreadsheet that helps people understand complex ideas in a simple way, or whether that's making dinner for your family and it tastes different than it did the night before and looks different, or whether it's sitting down ... Right now, it looks a lot like ... I have a seven-year-old little girl, I sit down with her and play dolls and Hatchimals and we make voices and we create adventures. And that creativity, that side of me is creative there. And I guess I just want to encourage our listeners just like you did, Rachel, that what makes you exhale? And sometimes when I build that spreadsheet, oh, it makes me exhale, girl. And it makes me more dependent on God because sometimes I'm facing such a complex problem that I'm having to solve that I'm going, “Oh my gosh, I'm not wrestling for a lyric, I'm wrestling for wisdom, Lord, and I desperately need You to pour it out on me.” And He shows up and He says, "All right, here's how you're going to solve this." And that's creativity as much as writing a song or painting a picture. So, Kaley, I know you have some questions. I just felt like I needed to share that story.

Rachel Marie Kang:
I just love that you shared that.

Kaley Olson:
Yeah, me too.

Rachel Marie Kang:
I do have a chapter on thought and I focus heavily on contemplation, but also strategy.
And you're sitting here talking and I just want to jump over the table and hug you because I do have that part of me that is so strategic and so logistical and logical. And I have for a very long time, not felt that, that was creative and have always felt like I've had to choose between, like you said, can I write a poem and call it creative or spreadsheets over here, and that stuff.
And so I felt so deeply … No, I'm going to go here. I want to speak into this and redeem it and call it what it is. And to be honest, and I won't go on too much because it's in the book. Just read it. But I have fallen in love with the strategy of God like never before. His faithfulness, His love, those things will never change and that will always be on the forefront of my mind. But in the last two years I've been like, “Oh my goodness, Lord, You are so strategic. I love You for that. You are brilliant. You are so beyond what I can fathom, and thank You that we get to be like that, we get to be like that.” There's such power. There's such creativity, possibility when you are a thinker or a strategizer, or an Excel spreadsheet maker, all those things.

Meredith Brock:
I love that. I can't get off that. I got to say one more thing. And that is y'all, sometimes when I'm reading the Bible, I'm in the Old Testament, I'm in there, we're reading it. It sounds crazy. And then all of a sudden, I go, hold up, God fulfilled this in the New Testament. Wait a minute, it all connects. Holy cow. That is strategy if I've ever heard it. And I think the spreadsheet that took to keep track of that promise and fulfill it in the New Testament.

Rachel Marie Kang:
Meredith, I'm fist bumping right now. Yes.

Meredith Brock:
And so it really is. Creativity isn't just painting pictures. It's not just writing poems or songs. It's that beautiful strategy God has and it's intrinsically in all of us. It just comes up differently.
Kaley?

Kaley Olson:
Well, I think we're all on the same page here, but I was even thinking about who Jesus surrounded Himself with. And Matthew, the tax collector was not a creative person to the world's eyes. And I think it's so funny, you, Rachel, as a creative, would I think get what I’m about to say here, is that creatives don't want to be boxed in, but how often do we box people in by using the term creativity?

Rachel Marie Kang:
I know, right?

Kaley Olson:
And who are we as humans to define what creativity is from a worldly perspective?

Rachel Marie Kang:
Absolutely.

Kaley Olson:
When God created Kalene across from the table right here in this room who does tech and IT stuff for Proverbs, that what she does is not heard on the podcast or seen on the podcast, but we wouldn't be able to get this message out to you if it wasn't for what Kalene does here or for Proverbs or one of my team members who I've worked with forever, her name is Haley. She says all the time, "Kaley, I'm not creative. I'm not good at this. I can't think of this." And she says it in a very dry way. And I'm like, "Haley, you can take somebody's problem and reverse engineer it faster than anyone that I know and catch things that you know are going to happen that no one else would see. And you've prevented so many things from going wrong at Proverbs." And what you see on the outside is this perfect product, but it wouldn't have been that way unless God hadn't given Haley the ability to be the person who catches those things. Or Janice, who is our Controller at Proverbs. And Controller is not a creative at all. Controller is like ultimate order keeper, right?

Rachel Marie Kang:
Yes. The order of the finances.

Kaley Olson:
Nobody can be more creative with finding money in our budget than Janice.

Meredith Brock:
Bless her heart.

Kaley Olson:
We love Janice.

Meredith Brock:
We all say thank you, Janice.

Kaley Olson:
I know. And her spreadsheet is creative because it's nice and color coordinated and things like that. Or another teammate, Mel, who is a creative person, because I know she can cook a wonderful meal and come up with the most elaborate gifts. But at Proverbs, she's a person who is an analytics, like, guru. And you ask her opinion about what she thinks about this potential problem, and she'll tell you in a split second and be able to back it up with facts.

Meredith Brock:
I always say about Mel, Mel, you make me think better.

Kaley Olson:
Yes.

Meredith Brock:
You make me think better.

Kaley Olson:
Yes.

Meredith Brock:
And that is creative.

Kaley Olson:
Yes. And so it's not that I necessarily have another question that I want to say, but I think I want to just land the plane in that I'm excited about where we landed with this because we started off talking about creativity and the different ways that you can for sure release what that looks like. And I think that's very, very important. I think that if God can paint the skies out of nothing, then everybody who has breath has the ability to create, even if it's something that maybe no one else would think is beautiful, God does. That's beautiful.

But whenever we drill down to the very bottom of all of this, it's that God who's the creator created you. And you have a purpose in maybe what you release and the way that you do that externally from what your day-to-day purpose is. But your day-to-day purpose is to create something and to be creative. And I don't want to take this passage out of context, but I was thinking about 1 Corinthians 12. And in this passage, that's talking about the gifts of the Spirit.
And so God is creative in giving you the gifts of the Spirit, but He's also creative in creating you as a person. And so it talks about the instructions in this passage are not to be jealous of another person's gifting because maybe it's something that you see on the outside and thinking that yours is less. But I'm just going to start in verse 20 and read this and then we can wrap up.

“As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those parts of the body that we think are less honorable we bestow the greatest honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members maybe have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer. If one member is honored, all rejoice together… Now you are the body of Christ and individually are members of it.” (1 Corinthians 12:20-26)

And I just think that's a beautiful reminder to end our time together in this podcast teaching and that whoever is listening right now, God has created you for a specific purpose. And whatever that looks like today, if you're doing it, it doesn't matter if it's seen and it doesn't matter if it's unseen. If you're doing what you're supposed to do, that's God being creative through you. So, Rachel, thank you so much for coming on the show today. It was a pleasure having you.

Rachel Marie Kang:
My joy. Thank you.

Meredith Brock:
Absolutely. We're so glad that you joined us, Rachel. And for our friends listening, hang tight for just a minute because Kaley and I have a few other announcements before we let you go.

Kaley Olson:
OK guys, we are back just a few things we want to remind you about. First, if you want to get free biblical devotions sent to your inbox every single day of the week. And by weekday, I mean Monday through Friday, we don't send them out on Saturday and Sunday. You can get subscribed for those at our website at proverbs31.org. And if you want a fun little newsletter once a month from me and some of the other people on our podcast team, you can subscribe to our podcast, insider newsletter, the link in our show notes.

Meredith Brock:
That's right. And you heard us talk all about Rachel's book. It is called, Let There Be Art: The Pleasure and Purpose of Releasing the Creativity Within You. And we don't want you guys to miss out on that one. It's linked in our show notes, but you can also get it anywhere books are sold. I think that's it for today, friends. At Proverbs 31 Ministries, we believe when you know the truth and live the truth, it really will change everything.