Today, I’d like to share insights from a topic I’ve had the privilege of exploring deeply over the past year and a half: design. And no, I will not bore you with design 101 or design philosophy, however, I would like to share something that I feel God has inspired me with over the course of my degree.
Before I begin, I hope you’ll take a moment today to look around you and recognize that everything around us has been designed, from the structure of buildings to the clothes we wear, and even the sunsets in the sky. Everything around us has been created, if not by another person, then by God. And it’s not just what we can see, but also what we can’t see… specifically those moments in life when seemingly heavenly experiences happen to us. The moments where we can’t help but ask, ‘Was that divinely orchestrated?’
My topic today focuses on three things:
1. How God is the Master Designer
2. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ invite us to co-design life with them
3. Life is the grand design
God is the Master Designer
In Genesis 1 it says:
24: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
25: And the earth was without form, and void: and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light and there was light.
26: And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
The world began with creation, and it’s that creation that ignited God’s plan. The plan that allows all of us, as spirit sons and daughters of loving heavenly parents, to come to earth in the form of families to receive a body of flesh and bone and to have the human experience. While on Earth, it is common for our true identities to become confused with earthly labels, status, or achievements. With the noise of the world and the constant barrage of messages, it is easy to forget that we are a creation of the Master Designer and that our identity is inherently and intricately linked to His.
For designers or artists, it’s often true that their creations are an extension of their identity or a reflection of who they are. For example, I think of some of the greatest designers and artists: László Moholy-Nagy, a Hungarian artist who was a professor at the original German Bauhaus, my personal favorite artist Pierre Jean Louis Germain Soulages, a French painter and printmaker, or a Chicago name, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a German-American architect who was one of the pioneers of modern architecture. I think of these masters of their trade and wonder how much each creation meant to them, how much each design was an extension of their being.
And then I can’t help but wonder, how much more are we, created by a loving Father in Heaven, an extension of Him?
In ‘The Family: A Proclamation to The World‘ it says:
“All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. “
It is my experience that as we come to understand and accept our identity as a son or daughter of God, we will begin to recognize that our worth is infinite, and nothing can change the truth of our true identity and who we are.
And the more we understand the unchanging and eternally consistent truth, that we are His, the more consistent our peace, the more unwavering our confidence, and the more joy in our lives.
Dieter F. Uchtdorf, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, once said in a talk titled “The Reflection in the Water“:
“Much of the confusion we experience in this life comes from simply not understanding who we are. Too many go about their lives thinking they are of little worth when, in reality, they are elegant and eternal creatures of infinite value with potential beyond imagination.”
Our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ Invite Us to Co-Design Life With Them
Co-design (short for collaborative design) “is the process of involving multiple stakeholders in the design and development of products, services, or systems with the goal of creating solutions that are more relevant, effective, and satisfying to the people who will use them.” (Hensley & Kitch, 2023)
Co-design is the process of designing “with rather than for people.” (The Institue of Design)
Something I noticed that happened while at design school is that many of us students came in as individuals. We came in with our own ideas and our own philosophy on what design is. But as we go through rigorous projects, late nights, failures, and successes, we start to realize that in the end, the best projects didn’t happen by a single person. They happened by a team of dedicated individuals who had a common purpose. The best teams were in sync, they were aligned, and they worked together in a supportive and dynamic way. Eventually, something amazing would come from the teamwork, and a meaningful project would emerge.
I can’t help but relate this to our relationship with our Father in Heaven. We can try to do life on our own. We can try to create the plan and hope God is okay with it, but just as the best projects include co-design, I think maybe the best lives also involve co-design with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Two people I had the privilege of meeting in Chicago are Patriarch Joseph Hicken and his wife, Leslie Hicken. When I first moved to Chicago, I needed a place to stay for two weeks before my apartment was available, and Joseph and Leslie opened their home to me without even knowing me. Their kindness changed me. Leslie Hicken recently passed on, and at her funeral, that I joined via YouTube, I couldn’t help but feel and witness an overwhelming truth that she had lived her life in sync with the Lord. Story after story about how she served and how she loved just testified to me that the best lives involve a soft heart and a willing mind to invite God in to be part of the design of our lives. By creating a life with our Father in Heaven, I believe He will make more of our lives than we ever could on our own.
Life is the Grand Design
And finally, I have come to believe that life is the grand design. I believe life is a divinely orchestrated experience that has the power to mold and shape us into who God designed us to be. I believe it is through God’s help and our experiences in life that we can reach our destiny as sons and daughters of Him.
But it is no secret that life also comes with sorrows, pains, and difficult moments. The purpose of why things happen or why God allows suffering to happen to all of us can also be a common question.
2 Nephi 2:11 in The Book of Mormon says, “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so… righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad…”
To me, this scripture shares a valuable truth that without suffering, we would never know joy, growth, or the power of agency. I’d like to share an example that I think illustrates this concept further.
One thing I learned in school was the concept of a ‘design framework.’ A design framework is essentially a structured approach to solving a problem and serves as a guide throughout the design process. (Batterbee, 2020)
Every project we approached in school was normally accompanied by a design framework or process. Over time, I began to notice something interesting about the frameworks we used, an unwritten rule. No matter how structured the process was, it was always accompanied by something else… chaos. Ask any designer, there is always a moment, usually somewhere in the middle, when chaos sets in. Tensions rise, stress builds, and doubt creeps in. You can find yourself thinking, ‘This is beyond repair. Beyond solution!’
But it’s right in the messy middle somewhere, where something miraculous often happens. As the tensions ease and clarity returns, you’ll take a step back for a second look. That’s when you notice that it was in the chaos that refinement took place. When ideas were questioned, better ones came out. When the pressure increased, creativity rose to meet it.
In the end, a dynamic and original project takes shape.
So, of course, I feel this can be applied to our lives. We may follow a heavenly prompting to do something or have faith to walk down a path even when we can’t see the destination. We may have dreams and goals deep in our hearts that we pray we can achieve. And along our path of following prompting, dreams, or an impression, chaos can arise. The difficulties and pressures come, and sometimes during those hard moments, we might question where our Heavenly Father is. But it’s in the difficulty that refinement takes place. It’s in the uphill battles that we become the people capable of achieving our dreams. And just as a designer works hard for their project to have the best outcome, I think so does God work to give us, his sons and daughters, our best outcomes.
In closing, I would like to share a quote by Thomas S. Monson, former Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in a talk he gave titled “In Quest of the Abundant Life”,
“God left us the world unfinished for man to work his skill upon. He left the electricity in the cloud, the oil in the earth. He left the rivers unbridged and the forests unfelled and the cities unbuilt. God gives to man the challenge of raw materials, not the ease of unfinished things. He leaves the pictures unpainted and the music unsung and the problems unsolved, that man might know the joys and glories of creation.”
I know that Jesus Christ lives. I know that God, our Heavenly Father, lives. I know that God is the Master Designer and that He has divinely orchestrated an extraordinary path for each of us. I know that as we invite God into our lives and into our plans for our lives that He can magnify our hopes and dreams and make our lives something more than we could ever imagine.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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