Just the other day I asked myself why I wasn’t praying more for afflatus. Or more accurately, just the other day I had never seen nor heard of this word and came across it in a book I was reading by A. W. Tozer. It is not so rare that I need to look up a word as I’m reading, but much more rare that I read a word I have never seen before and have absolutely no idea what it means.
In this case the sentence in which Tozer casually threw in this word reads, “I doubt whether anyone ever received that divine afflatus with which we are here concerned who did not first experience a period of deep anxiety and inward agitation.” A captivating sentence that I couldn’t begin to understand until I looked up the meaning of afflatus. I was totally intrigued that it read “divine afflatus” – it had to have something to do with something I wanted, to be sure. I stopped and went through my mental dictionary with absolutely no luck in getting close to what the word means.
But now I proclaim – I need to pray more for “afflatus.” Everyone of us could use at least a bit of afflatus and most of us could use a lot of afflatus. It would make our days more memorable, more lively, and at the very least more bearable. It would cause us to see things in a new light, to gain new perspectives, to bless others around us with encouragement, to build our confidence – the list goes on.
Because… afflatus means a sudden, powerful creative impulse, divine inspiration, or an internal mental force that drives artistic or poetic creation. Who doesn’t want more of divine inspiration in their day, in their work, in their relationships? If you are the creative type of personality, you should be pleading for afflatus in your writing to bring ideas to life on the page. And as an artist, anyone would want more creativity to see everything around us with a new lens that come from an internal mental force. Putting brush to canvas would take on a whole new dimension. Wow – what we have been missing out on by not praying for afflatus.
I even like how the definition uses the word “sudden” which implies powerful and unexpected – just an idea that crashes into your mind and you can’t wait to write it down, paint it, speak it or use it simply to enhance your day. It comes from the Latin meaning “breathing on” or “to blow toward.” Synonyms include inspiration, genius, insight, revelation, spark and creative impulse.
Wow again – we want all those things in our lives.
Cicero employed the word in literature “to describe a sudden, mind-altering spark of insight.” All these definitions just light my fire when I think about how a “spark of insight” could impact my day – as I have conversations, as I write and answer emails, as I do creative projects for the ministry I work with, as I sit in Zooms and listen to ideas being discussed. I didn’t ever know I needed afflatus like I do now.
Somewhere in my research of the word, I read that afflatus is a “loftier alternative” to the word inspiration. One example of its use in a sentence was “The critic argued that the poem lacked that true divine afflatus.” Let is not be said of me as I move forward that my life lacks “that true divine afflatus.” I plan to be praying for it daily so I won’t waste my retirement!
