What If God Is Growing Something You Can’t See Yet?

At the end of last year, I found myself facing a challenging situation and wondering how I would navigate the months ahead. At the same time, I was asked to mentor someone who was also walking through a difficult season. I must admit that more than once, I found myself prayerfully asking, How do I help someone who needs encouragement when I need encouragement myself? Yet I decided to take a step of faith—for my new friend and for myself.

As I prayerfully faced the challenges ahead, something unexpected began to happen. I experienced a new poetic flow that produced a number of poems. Many of them were originally intended as a gift for a friend with whom I had lost contact over the years.

Knowing that a significant portion of the Bible is written in poetic form, I began thinking again about the power of creative expression. Sometimes creativity opens a space in which we are able to perceive something we could not see before. It may not always bring the answer we were hoping for, but it can help us recognize something God is revealing for the road ahead.

Poetry and art—what I sometimes think of as visual poetry—can speak directly to our emotions rather than only to our intellect. They can bring comfort and encouragement in ways that sometimes go beyond what we can fully explain.

When Nothing Seems to Be Moving

After about eight months of weekly mentoring, my friend and I still hadn't made much progress toward finding a solution to one particular problem.

One day, I suggested something different. I invited him to visit the Creative Helping Hands blog and, instead of searching for an answer, simply look through the titles until one resonated with him.

He did.

Interestingly, the article he chose was one I had written about the possible emergence of a new poetic flow among Creative Helping Hands readers and subscribers in the coming year.

In that reflection, I shared that I sensed some readers might be entering a new season of creative—perhaps even poetic—expression in 2026, and that creativity itself might become part of an answer to prayer.

I have discovered that in a daily walk with Jesus, new wells of refreshment can emerge during challenging seasons. And surprisingly often, those new wells involve creativity.

Then something beautiful happened.

After reflecting on the article, my friend sent me a poem he had written.

I don't yet know what that poem meant for him in that moment—we haven't had our mentoring meeting this week—but his creative flow became an encouragement to me.

It reminded me to keep trusting God's hidden work in the soil of a person's heart.

Something I had written in December had been like a seed buried beneath the surface. For months, I could see nothing happening. And then, unexpectedly, a small shoot appeared.

What Might Emerge in You?

Today, I would like to invite you to try what my friend did. Go to the Blog section of Creative Helping Hands. Choose a category that resonates with what you are carrying today. Then look through the titles and notice which one catches your attention or moves your heart.

Don't overthink it.

Choose one.

Read it slowly. Reflect on it. Perhaps pray about what you have read.

And then give yourself a little space.

What begins to emerge?

Perhaps it will be a new thought.

Perhaps a prayer.

Perhaps a poem, a painting, a photograph, or an idea.

Perhaps it will simply be a small seed of hope.

You don't have to force anything to happen. Sometimes God's work begins quietly, beneath the surface, long before we are able to see the first shoot.

Be blessed!

"Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with choice fruit, henna with nard," Song of Songs 4:13