The Desire to Create

Our lesson this coming Sunday is on the Creation. In the process of preparing, I came across a wonderful talk by President Uchtdorf that gave me a different perspective on the Creation and the desire of Heavenly Father and His children to create. An excerpt:

Let me first pose a question: What do you suppose is the greatest kind of happiness possible? For me, the answer to this question is, God’s happiness.

This leads to another question: What is our Heavenly Father’s happiness?

This may be impossible to answer because His ways are not our ways. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are [God’s] ways higher than [our] ways, and [His] thoughts [higher] than [our] thoughts.”

Though we cannot understand “the meaning of all things,” we do “know that [God] loveth his children” because He has said, “Behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”

Heavenly Father is able to accomplish these two great goals—the immortality and eternal life of man—because He is a God of creation and compassion. Creating and being compassionate are two objectives that contribute to our Heavenly Father’s perfect happiness. Creating and being compassionate are two activities that we as His spirit children can and should emulate.

The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before.

Everyone can create. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty.

Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty . . . .

Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Happiness, Your Heritage,” Ensign, Nov 2008, 117–20