Make Something!

Look at your hands. Notice the way your fingers are shaped: from the thin pad of your index finger to the height of your middle finger, the ring finger, the tiny pinky, and the thumb. Wiggle them and note how each joint bends, from the first knuckle down to the joint near the fingernail. Then look at the unique patterns on your palms and finger pads.

Your hands are power tools. They are home to more than one-quarter of all the joints in your body. This gives them their unique ability to bend, twist, press, pull, hold and perform countless intricate tasks.

They are the reason you can keep yourself busy throughout the day, from finishing homework assignments to stacking a sandwich to eat after school.

Hands have allowed for the most impressive achievements in history. There are the massive: Mount Rushmore, the pyramids at Giza, and the Great Wall of China. And there are the intricate: Rembrandt’s brushstrokes, the piano performance of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” and your great-grandmother’s handmade quilt.

But each year the world becomes more digital, the less we make anything tangible. While we use our hands to type on computer keyboards and thumb out text messages, we rarely construct something.

Entrepreneur Brit Morin noticed this trend in her own life. Ultimately, she started the company Brit + Co to promote do-it-yourself projects and the importance of making.

She wrote in The Huffington Post: “Compared to my mother’s generation, it’s clear that the domestic and creative arts education in schools has floundered over the past couple of decades. At some schools, Home Ec and Shop classes are no longer even offered, and if they are, they are usually an optional course. Combine that with the fact that most people my age (AKA millennials) probably had two busy, working parents growing up (and therefore likely did not get a deep education on many of these skills)…”

What is lost when we do not use our hands to create?

Psychology Today reported: “Too much time on technological devices and the fact that we buy almost all of what we need rather than having to make it has deprived us of processes that provide pleasure, meaning and pride. Process is important for happiness because when we make, repair or create things, we feel vital and effective…When we are dissolved in a deeply absorbing task we lose self-consciousness and pass the time in a contented state.”

Think about the last time you made something by hand, whether it was a cake, a birdfeeder, a small flower garden, or a photo album. Not only was putting it together absorbing, it felt very rewarding to bring it to completion. By creating with your hands, you will produce something that you can see and touch, which triggers a very satisfying response.

There are also mental benefits to working with your hands. It relieves stress, spurs creativity, and develops stronger problem-solving abilities. Creating helps increase your attention span as you are focusing on one thing for extended periods of time. In addition, when you successfully complete a project, you begin to realize and challenge your capacity, feel more useful, and develop a sense of purpose. In effect, you prove to yourself that you are able to follow through and accomplish your plans.

Yet this is just the tiniest taste of why it is important to make physical objects. There is an even deeper importance.

God Is a “Maker”

It should come as no surprise God wants us to use our hands. The Bible reveals that He used His hands to create the universe.

“I have made the earth and created man upon it,” God said in Isaiah 45:12, “I, even My hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.”

During His time on Earth, Jesus Christ was a carpenter (Mark 6:3). He understood what it took to hone a skill. He would have known how to select the right piece of wood for a job, solve problems to make the right cart, table or building for a specific need, maintain a saw, chisel and other tools—and use them without hurting Himself.

Christ’s profession was recorded in the Bible for a purpose, from which we can glean lessons.

Now realize that man was made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26-27). We were designed not only to look like Him, but to enjoy working and creating like our Creator.

Recall how God paused to look back on His handiwork at the end of six days of refashioning the Earth’s surface: “And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31).

King Solomon understood this principle. He personally worked on or oversaw many projects—just read the summary of his works in Ecclesiastes 2:4-8: “I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that brings forth trees…I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I got me singers and…musical instruments, and that of all sorts…”

In addition to these, he penned over a thousand songs (I Kgs. 4:32) and wrote three books of the Bible.

He concluded in Ecclesiastes: “I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labor” (2:10). He also summarized in Proverbs: “The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul” (13:19).

We can experience the same pleasure that our Maker receives from making things. Creating something with your hands is not only stimulating, rewarding and brimming with mental benefits, it provides a window into the mind of our Creator!

Making for Starters

An irony about making things with your hands is that it is so easy to do and there are so many options available that it is impossible to do them all, yet many people choose to avoid doing them.

To change this and become more adept at making things, it is best to start with simple, one-material crafts such as the Japanese art of paper folding: origami. There are an endless number of things you can create with just paper.

Working with clay gives even more options, allowing you to create everything from bowls to animal figures. This might require that you go to a shop that has a kiln where your clay can be solidified into a permanent shape and glazed.

There are also premade kits you can purchase that are relatively easy to put together. For instance, you can buy an electronic testing kit. With it you can learn about electric circuits, be able to use a soldering iron, and operate switches, motors, lights, buzzers and make a remote control. Simple electronics can be used to create everything from a three-speed fan to a three-speed miniature race car.

Other kits provide the tools you need to make practical gifts for others or trinkets around the home: candles, quilts, macrame bracelets, train kits, airplane and car models, flower arrangements, presentation foods such as hors d’oeuvres and desserts, woven baskets, or simple knitted clothes.

Another option is to try building something with wood that requires hammers, screwdrivers, nails and sandpaper: a birdhouse, a small shelf, wall mounts for key hangers, a bookshelf, a rack, and a coin box. In addition to forming the wood, these can be painted. You could also try the craft of wood burning.

If you have a garden in your yard, propose a way to beautify it by adding a stone barrier, a trellis, or a patio. Perhaps help your family build a toolshed. With any project you undertake, be sure to keep your parents informed and above all be safe.

You do not necessarily have to walk into a store and spend cash to work with your hands. Spending time to write—poetry, short stories, or personal journal entries—counts! Handwriting is proven to be very beneficial in that it helps with concentration, keeps your cognitive skills sharp as you age, and helps you become a better writer overall. Sketching images on paper has similar benefits.

It is also good to carefully take things apart and put them back together. Doing this will allow you to see how items are constructed. For starters, try disassembling and reassembling a flashlight or taking the tire off a car and putting it back on (with parental permission, of course).

The list of options could go on and on. By this point, you should realize that there is an endless number of endeavors with which to occupy your hands! Go online for more ideas on what to make and how to make it.

Once you complete a project, enjoy the satisfaction that comes with it. But also realize your ultimate potential. Human beings were made to make things—think of it as a foretaste or a little rehearsal for what you could be making on a much grander scale in God’s Kingdom.

Making things in the future will be extremely rewarding—but you do not have to wait. Experience that joy now and make something with your hands.