(Full article about this amazing book on my blog http://www.ericbeaty.com)
I first found a copy of this book at my local library using their ebook program. I checked it out and forwarded it to my Kindle.
I finished the book in about two days, after which I immediately purchased a paperback copy and began transferring all my Kindle highlights to it.
It was as if the creative part of my soul had been dining on fast food and had now discovered a gourmet meal.
As I read, I continued to find tons of amazing analogies, spiritual truths, and, most importantly, validation that what I had been feeling in my spirit as an artist with multiple desires to express myself was, in a word: Okay.
One of the aspects of this book that resonates with me the most is the sudden revelation that I don’t have to be constrained to only one form of creative expression. With so many ideas, projects, and (seemingly important) obligations, I constantly find myself torn between what will best suit my need to express my inner thoughts, emotions, and ideas as an artist. And for the longest, I’ve felt guilty at favoring one pursuit at the expense of all the many others.
But after reading A Million Little Ways, most especially the chapter on “Sinking into God” (Ch. 5: “Sink: Look Up”), I realized that, as the book so eloquently yet ingeniously states:
“[God] comes into us, then comes out of us, in a million little ways.”
I myself sometimes feel very inadequate in expressing the thoughts, ideas, and emotions that long to come out in so many forms and expressions. This, more than anything I think, is the cause of such frequent strong feelings of failure and inadequacy: the idea that I can’t do it, that someone else can do it—and probably already has done it—better than me.
However, if it’s God “which worketh in [me] both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13), then I no longer have to rely on my own creative abilities; I only need to trust that He is able to lead me in the right direction, guide me to the appropriate outlets of creative expression, and help me relay the exact thoughts, emotions, and ideas which my soul wants to share with the world.
In closing, in her magnificent book, Emily Freeman states that in previous years she used to be an interpreter for the deaf via sign language and has since retired from this work. But when I finished A Million Little Ways, I couldn’t help but notice the connection and similarities in both her profound writing and her skills as an interpreter.
By using the signing skills she learned to convey to those who can’t hear the messages people were trying to send, Emily Freeman has, in writing this book, served once again to interpret the message that my heart, my soul, my creative self has so longed to hear: I am God’s art, He created me in His image; therefore, I am a creative soul and He delights in my art!
I encourage you in the words of Jesus, regarding the parable of the Good Samaritan: “Go thou and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).
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Emily P. Freeman
is a bestselling author and host of The Next Right Thing podcast.
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Reviews with images
Going Deep
I'm a part of an online reading group and was going to post images of what I underlined, then realized that was just a cop out. This book, like our Identity as Creatives, needs to soak and soak deep. It's not enough to read, it must be encountered, but more than that, it needs to be acted on. Example, "You have the capacity to perform the human act of making art, of doing work that comes from deep with in you and touches something deep within me" (p 21). My "Making" touches your "Deep." Your "Deep" needs my "Making," so what am I making? Just like my spirit is wrecked in God's presence, so too, my creative spirit is being wrecked by this book 😳 It is soooo GOOD!
Top reviews from other countries
Amazon Customer
Really great book with a challenge to change the way you ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 3, 2016