Walking On Water
“You have to learn to trust that you will be inspired.” I recently heard Jodie Foster say these words on a film-directing Master Class. I like this statement. I believe it applies to almost anything in which one wants to be a conduit of divine thought that leads to inspired action. This kind of divinely inspired movement requires us to go out to “the edge.” It requires us to stand unmasked and soul-naked in a raw and vulnerable place of receptivity.
Most would agree that this applies to directors, choreographers, musicians and artists. But I believe it applies to more of us than we realize. Yet we will only experience such exhilarating God-breathed directives if we are eager for the freshness of Freedom. As a recipient and conduit of divinely inspired Breath, you have to be willing to live in the untamed wildness of God. You have to be willing to go where no one has gone before. You have to be willing to walk on water and know that you can and that you will.
I recently connected with a wonderful former student who I had taught 34 years ago. He reminded me that I used to “walk on water” in the studio (as a professional dancer/teacher/choreographer). He said I would stop still and listen, waiting with certain expectation that divine inspiration would come to me. And it always did.
In the creative world, if you want to touch an audience, you must live unfolded. Even in my early twenties as an artist, I innately knew this was the only way to touch lives in a way that they couldn’t be untouched. I could feel the inspiration in my soul like fire kindling. I could hear the divine message of the vibrations between the notes like distant thunder and the stirrings of the ocean. And they spoke to me with exquisite clarity in a language not of this world. I could taste the movements long before they touched my limbs like wild, raw honey just fallen from the comb. And in a flash, I would know what to do, and would create authentic movement, perhaps in ways I never had before. The inspiration would often bypass my own mind and communicate through me from the core of my being.
Even writing about these recollections is a breath of freedom. (I feel these things now when I write or teach God’s Word.) The beautiful thing about this reminder from my former student is that this creative alignment took place before I was formerly introduced to Jesus. The powerful divine inspiration that I knew as an artist had nothing to do with religion or church attendance. It was pure unadulterated relationship with Eternal Life Source. Jesus was as present in my life then as He was after our first formal introduction. (I just didn’t know it.) For quite a long time after coming into Christianity, I unknowingly allowed much of that fearless creativity to be suppressed. (Sadly, much of the Christian world lives caged and boxed in restrictive belief systems that are misaligned with the freedom of God’s nature and Word. I’m grateful I was able to re-connect again with the Beauty of Freedom, without too much detrimental fragmentation taking place in my soul.
I want to encourage you not to get hung up on labels and forms. Irrespective of your craft or field of work, know that walking on water feels weird to the natural senses. As you step out in faith partnership with Holy Spirit, fully expect to dance and soar in ways not known before. Know that to experience your own inner genius, you have to be willing to get out of the boat of shoulds, musts, and have tos and stand on the wildness of trust. Connect to the creative Brilliance that was God-Breathed into you, and has never left you. Embrace every aspect of your unique personhood as though planet Earth depended on I, because it does.
