Gallery of Works

Corey and I listened to the Follow Him podcast together while we were climbing top rope this evening. I really liked this idea of us being judged according to our creative works - like our life's art exhibit!

Yale School of Art

Follow Him Old Testament: EPISODE 4 (2026) with John Hilton III – Genesis 3-4; Moses 4-5 – Part 1, minute 28

Dr. John Hilton III 20:09: I think that that’s part of the creation process. Separating the light from the darkness, figuring out, okay, I have a limited time. Where’s God calling me to put my priorities? One of the places for all of us that he’s gonna call us to put priorities is in creating something. As I read Genesis one, I can almost feel God’s joy in creation. From verse 21, God created every living thing God saw it was good. God blessed them. I can just picture God blessing all of the creations. Verse 31, God saw all that he had made and it was very good. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said, creating contributes to our heavenly Father’s perfect happiness. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of beauty. Our birthright is to seek and experience eternal happiness. One of the ways we find this is by creating things. I just love that for me, I’ve been picked up the guitar as a recent hobby. I will never be a professional guitarist. I will almost certainly never put anything on Spotify, but I can have fun experiencing the joy of creation and playing a little song. I hope for all of us we can experience this. President Uchtdorf finishes the quote, he says, what you create doesn’t have to be perfect. Don’t let the voice of critics paralyze you. Whether that voice comes from the outside or the inside, we can just experience joy in creation.

Hank Smith: 29:39 Occasionally John, when I read that God will judge all men according to their works, you could think of the word works there as like works of art. I will judge them based on their creativeness.

John Bytheway: 29:53 Their gallery.

Hank Smith: 29:54 Yeah, their gallery, their works.

Hank Smith: 29:59 I like the idea that God instead of "let’s look at the right and wrongs of your life", "let’s look at everything you made. Let’s look at all that you created." John Bytheway likes to say everybody has a book in ’em, at least one book John says.

pic above of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Creation

Listening on a ride again today, I loved this thought by Dr. Rebekah Call at 9:09 about the process of creation:

"When you’re reading the Come, Follow Me introduction, it talked about God creating. We talk about God creating the world, but I think also each of us is in the middle of Creation right now. My life is in process of being creative. I’m living my life as I’m going and if I’m choosing to live that with God, then God also gets to be creating in my life. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the creative process is messy. Go to any pottery studio, go watch a painter, or go watch the construction of a building. 

"The process of Creation is inherently messy. A lot of times in my life, when I’m like, man, I feel like my life is really a mess right now. I’m not holding things together and this fell through the cracks. I made this mistake. I think it can be helpful to remember that God created the world, and that was a messy process, and look what we have. Look at the beauty that has been given to us in this world. Sometimes the messiest moments aren’t because something is wrong. It’s because Creation is happening. It needs to be messy. There needs to be stuff added in and stuff taken away and stuff trimmed and shaped, and that’s really beautiful. However messy our lives are, we’re in the middle of Creation."