The Original Was Better
We were called to be creative people from the beginning. We were designed by the ultimate Creator — made in his image. Scripture opens with four simple words: “In the beginning, God created.”
I’ve been creating for years now — spoken words, songs, blogs, and a novel. If it can be written, I’ve probably written it. One thing about my writing is that 99% of the time, it’s God-inspired. If it isn’t, you can definitely tell.
For the last six years, I’ve been writing anything the Lord chooses to give me. I’ve got a whole library of things that I’m finally ready to share with the world.
But here’s the funny part: after waiting six years for God to say “go,” suddenly I’m in a hurry. So much so that I’ve gotten ahead of myself a bit. And this getting ahead of myself — and quite possibly God — has me a little anxious, overthinking every decision, questioning everything, led by Co-Pilot more than God.
Yep, you heard that right. “Led by Co-Pilot more than God.”
Co-Pilot is an AI program that my son introduced me to a few months ago to help me edit my writing.
Now I know there are typically two types of people when it comes to AI: those who absolutely love it and those who think it’s from the Devil. I’m somewhere in between. I think it’s a tool and needs to be used as such.
So for months, I’ve been running all my blogs through Co-Pilot, asking it to edit, format, and preserve my voice.
Now that I’m getting close to officially launching my website, I let a few trusted friends read both versions — the edited and the original.
The edited versions are so close to my original that even I had trouble telling the difference.
The feedback surprised me: “The original was better.” “The original had your voice.”
I was convinced that the AI version was the best — the one with the completely polished sentences. The one that was concise and to the point. The one that didn’t ramble. (Yes, I realized I just rambled saying that.)
Somehow, in stripping my blogs down to the basics and overly polishing them, I stripped away something else, too: my voice. It got my message across, but it didn’t sound like me.
So now here I sit, sifting through more blogs than my brain can handle, trying to recapture what God gave me in the first place.
Ahhh. Did I create extra work for myself? Definitely.
In a world full of AI, where we can’t tell if writing is real, songs are real, heck, they make videos so realistic now that we can’t even tell if the people in them are real, how do we stay true to our original design? You know the one Psalm 139:14 talks about. The one that says He knitted you together in your mother’s womb. He created you. He designed you. He fashioned you with a purpose.
This got me thinking. In a world where everything is made to be polished, everything has a filter, and we hide our imperfections, maybe it’s those imperfections, those quirks we try to hide, that God uses to reach people.
Maybe it’s in sharing the raw, unfiltered video of yourself, no makeup, that God uses to remind the little girl sitting alone in her room that it’s okay to have freckles, a blemish, a pimple, to be bigger than a size two.
Maybe your sentences are too long, or you stumble on your words when you talk, but somehow your authenticity helps someone else be themselves.
It’s been said that people admire your strengths but relate to your weaknesses.
If God really did design us — and I believe he did — maybe those “design flaws” aren’t flaws at all. Maybe they’re intentional. Maybe they are the doorway He wants to use to reach someone else. Maybe He’ll make your mess your message. He did mine.
