As the leaves turn color and fall, we see God’s work all around us. But what if we saw this work as his art instead?

Emily Freeman, author of A Million Little Ways ($13.99; October 2013, Revell), wants us to see it this way. And then she wants us to live out our own lives as the masterpieces (artist signature: “Yahweh”) that they are. In doing this, we will glorify him, she writes.

There isn’t only one right way to do the job of glorifying God. There are many ways, a million little ways, that Christ is formed in us and spills out of us into the world.

Knowing you are a poem doesn’t confine you to be artsy, it releases you to be you. We are art, every one of us. No matter our personality, skill, talent, or inclinations. The essence of being human is that we were made by design with the hands of the Divine Artist.

This is another way of saying that God created us to be joyful, beautiful, holy. We, of course, made (and make) a wreckage out of that joy and beauty, which is why we need Jesus to give us salvation and sanctification. That he might present our ugly works as glorious wonders.

In response to that salvation, it is not only our good deeds (made perfect in Christ) which are to shine out in the world, but our utter delight in being his creation and his child—each with its distinct personality and calling.

Freeman, who is also author of the best-selling Grace for the Good Girl: Letting Go of the Try-Hard Life (Revell, 2001), asks on her blog that whether your job is to teach, sing, build, write, love, help, or calculate, “What might Christ look like coming out of me, through the filter of my unique personality?”

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. – 1 Corinthians 12:21-27

We are each a different part of the body. And each is essential.

Has Jesus called you to be his child? How are you to use your own gifts to serve and glorify him? Or, in Freeman’s words, what kind of art are you making?

Lindsey M. Roberts is the editor of the All About Jesus blog. After seven years in secular journalism, she is thrilled to explore in words how everything—from taking a walk to doing the dishes—is an opportunity to meet and glorify God. Lindsey lives with her husband and newborn son in Virginia.