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