vladimirgrebenar 
Thinking about the importance of ideas for creativity has never stopped. Philosophy, art, contemporary science, entrepreneurship, politics, sports and all other areas of human creativity and activism base their work on some ideas. For example, as far back as antiquity, the Greek philosopher Plato based his philosophical doctrine on a world of ideas that precedes and shapes the later external form of reality.
When it comes to creativity, the scientific discipline of entrepreneurship explains how important creativity and leadership are for business success. Creativity is the ability to generate great ideas from which innovative solutions later emerge. Leadership is a way of positive thinking and behavior and encouraging others. Ideas encourage a person to act and work or to be lazy and reluctant. The ideas that man generates through his thoughts and inner being and that move him to action have their source in spirituality.
Man is a spiritual being and open to spiritual stimuli. Spiritual stimuli come to us in thought, emotion, reason, and will in the form of ideas. The stimuli of the spirit are different, depending on the source of spirituality from which one is inspired. There are three basic and different sources of spirituality, i.e. sources of spiritual stimuli in the form of ideas: 1) God, 2) man, and 3) the enemy of God and man.
The first source of spirituality is the Holy Spirit or the Word of God which inspires man to works of greater creation. God’s ideas encourage man to believe that he can initiate greater creative endeavors than those in which he himself believes. The reason is that God trusts man more than we trust ourselves. It has been scientifically proven that most successful business ventures come after entrepreneurs have “thought big enough ideas,” so this is a recommendation to anyone starting their own business.
Thinking big enough ideas means giving space to creativity, not fears of falling. Thinking big enough ideas means giving God a chance to surprise us. When a person dares to undertake ventures based on God’s idea, then he must necessarily have lasting and strong faith and trust in the one who called him to action. A man who follows God’s encouragements necessarily faces fears within himself. The fears in man are the greatest barrier to the realization of God’s plan, while that man realizes the endeavor the way God wants him to.
Man’s fears force rationalism and diminish man’s trust in God, creating the false illusion that God will not do His part of the job as promised. Love for God breeds faith, and fear that God has left us breeds doubt. Faith is the complete opposite of doubt. God in us can only work by faith. Fears stifle trust in God and force us to calculations.
King David, who by faith and in the name of God carried out great deeds with the small community of Israel, uniting the country and freeing it from other nations, finally gave space to fear and doubt in his heart and commanded his generals against their will to count the people. The generals knew that God had led them in all the wars in which they had defeated superior armies in number, and they begged the king not to commit this act of unbelief towards God.
David remained at his decision and, as a religious, military and political leader, committed an act of unbelief in God in the eyes of the community, calculating with his own strengths and not counting on God’s cooperation. “And David’s heart smote him after that he had numbered the people” (2 Sam. 24:10). David prayed to God to forgive him for his sin. God certainly forgave him, but the consequence of sin came upon the whole nation.
God rebuked David through the prophet for doing this, because he calculated with reason and did not believe that alongside his small army there was also a mighty heavenly army. Our nature responds to God through fears “how will it be?”, but only a small number of people have the courage to say “let it be me!” Scripture repeats exactly 366 times the word “do not be afraid” that God addresses to man for each day of the year. Entrepreneurs who rely on God’s guidance can never fall!
A man can be inspired by himself wanting to achieve something in life that is just his dream. Such ideas may come from noble motives, but they may also come from selfishness or prestige. When a man inspires himself, the question is how much this idea is pleasing to God and whether the Lord will put his hand over that endeavor. Also, people can inspire other people to make life choices. Some people have a tendency to persuade others to make life choices.
At any rate, when a man advises another man on what to do in his life in terms of a profession or on what business venture to start or not to start, he puts himself in the place of God.
It is often the case that parents force their children when they are already adults to enroll in a college of their choice for their personal celebration or out of fear for the future of their children.
Also, parents entrepreneurs know how to force their children to work in their companies believing it as the safest and best life choice for them.
Parents, relatives, godparents and various friends tend to advise how it is better not to start any business ventures in a society that does not offer security. The consequence of this kind of advice is the frequent departures of young people with families from our homeland and the mortality of the people. Successful business ventures are based on creative ideas that need to be “thought of as big ideas.” However, we are surrounded by so many negative people who have high expectations of the state and others, and low expectations of themselves. What should a person who is considering starting a business and has creative ideas do first?
In the first, second and third place, it is necessary to move away from people who show negative spiritualities, speak negatively, accuse others, take more from society than they give back and deal with other people’s lives. Negative people are thieves of creative ideas. When a creative person shares living space and does activities with negative people who do not want to change while confronted with a testimony of faith, then they are more likely to become negative themselves.
If we do not move a healthy apple away from a rotten apple in time, both will rot. When a creative person shares their ideas with people who use negative speech, they will embarrass that person out of envy and other negative feelings by trying to lower it even deeper below their level. Unfortunately, all this negative speech happens under the false mask of love, care and compassion to hide true feelings of jealousy and intolerance.
Light and darkness do not go together. Where there is light, there is no darkness, and when the lamp goes out, darkness arises. Positive people need to surround themselves with positive people in order to be successful in life. Entrepreneurs who create products and services for the benefit of others in life make great testimonies of faith. Actions justify, not words.
The third source of spirituality is the enemy of God and the enemy of man. The devil is the enemy of man because God wants man to be successful. The devil cannot be successful because there is a curse on him that God has spoken. Whatever he begins, his deeds are annihilation, anarchy, division, destruction, death, ruin, disappointment… And the negative list goes on and on. It is the intention of this contrary spirit that man falls under the curse of sin and thus becomes its servant.
The enemy fell to earth by falling from heaven, some of the vast and unfathomable spaces above the universe, and for a time he ruled the earth, making everything cursed together with humanity. Jesus Christ removed this curse by nailing it to the cross along with Himself. The beginning of the construction of the new world begins with Christ, so human history is counted both before and after Christ the Lord. Why is this important? It is extremely important to realize that the world and the human community began to build progressively after Christ destroyed the curse by sacrifice on the cross.
Today’s world and entrepreneurship would not exist if Jesus had not come to earth and destroyed the curse. Evil in the world, and thus evil in entrepreneurship, is not God’s will, but man’s cooperation with evil and the evil one. Many wonder why the enemy has so much power that he is the master of many powerful politicians, institutions, multimillionaires and false philanthropists. It is simple. He stole what people were creating, having taken it through deception.
The devil bases his power on earth on deception, lies and theft. Have we not witnessed many scams by politicians who have extracted taxpayer money through public companies in their favor or for the benefit of some of their organizations fighting for power on earth? Corporations that have outgrown and outlived their founders have become powerful assets in the hands of secret organizations that draw their inspiration from the occult.
Occultism is a powerful weapon used by the Devil through people from the worlds of business, politics, pop, sports, medicine and other fields to steal even more and strengthen his influence. His ultimate goal is not to build a world or a new world order, but to completely destroy humanity and all creation. Unfortunately, many people, even Christians, draw their inspiration for starting some endeavors in life from the inspiration that comes from the occult.
For example, the film industry, the entertainment industry or the gaming industry are often inspired by occult characters who do not glorify God and life, but the enemy and death. Ventures that create content that are against man and God are not ventures desired by the Lord, but by the enemy. Such bogus ventures do not build up those for which they are intended, although they often make large profits.
Such false successes are not successes from God’s perspective, but from the perspective of stumbled humanity. The purpose of such endeavors is to harm man, to say “non serviam” to God, and to sell the soul to the evil one for false success. One should always keep in mind that sin promises a lot, gives little and in the end takes everything away.[1]
[1] The article was published with minor changes in: Veritas. Glasnik sv. Antuna Padovanskog. Croatian Province of St. Jerome of the Franciscan Conventuals. Zagreb. Sveti Duh 31. No. 10. October 2020. P. 28.