It happens to us all from time to time, especially to creative types - that diminishing little voice from deep inside that is convinced that the things we do are no big deal, simply because we did them and we have trouble seeing ourselves as authors of anything truly important. "Basically," the voice whispers in sad despair, "if I did it, then it must be stupid, easy, worthless..." and many other unhappy assessments.

I know, because I've been there myself. But the one thing I've found that really changed my paradigm on this is the realization that I'm not the one doing the creating - it's coming through me from God and, quite simply put, God isn't capable of creating crap. Granted, by the time it finally gets through all the crud I've got going on inside, it may be a little dinged up and dusty. But all that means is that I have to learn to let it out sooner and quicker and with less filtering, so as to retain every last ounce of juicy goodness that originally came with it.

From my perspective, we are all - to use a familiar analogy - God's "email programs" to the material world. What He/She wants done, sent, given or offered to the world gets "emailed" through the appropriate person and out into the world the same way we would send a message through Outlook or Hotmail and on to our waiting receiver. It's only when we start second-guessing these messages (like an over-active spam filter) or making ourselves incompatible with God's message (like an email program with format compatibility issues or viral damage) that we start garbling and losing the messages altogether.

As long as we...

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