Confessions of A Christian Writer

Writing is a lonely activity.

A writer has to wrestle not only with the thoughts that are in his or her mind and which of those thoughts to write about, but the writer must also think about the audience who will receive the words. What is the need of the reader? What effect should the writing have on him or her? What approach and words should be used, and are the phrases, grammar and spelling correct? All these activities are done in solitude; they are a matter of what takes place in the heart and mind of the writer.

As the writer of this blog, I have to make a confession. My thoughts lately have been much like the picture above. Weedy, sharp and barren. Quite honestly, people, things, news, teachings, circumstances, and my own self have been irking me. Outwardly I appear pleasant and relatively happy. But inside, when I wrestle with my thoughts, I have been irked.

Lets get this straight about what I've been feeling. Below are some words to describe my inner attitude. However, I don't think I'm alone in being irked. The chances are good that these words will describe what many other people feel at times, even you! Aggravated, annoyed, bothered, bugged, chafed, disgruntled, displeased, disturbed, driven up the wall, exasperated, frustrated, grated, hassled, incensed, inconvenienced, infuriated, maddened, miffed, nagged, needled, outraged, peeved, pestered, plagued, provoked, put out, riled, rubbed the wrong way, teased, ticked off, tried, vexed, worked up and worried.

The editorial pages of a newspaper and a great number of blogs are peoples' opinions about what is irking them. It is relatively easy to talk or write about things that bother us. It's easy to complain about things or blame others when things go wrong. However, as a Christian writer, I can't do that. I have to be careful how I write. I can't just write to get things off my chest so that I feel better. I have to write in a Christ-like manner. That's not always easy to do. The last few days, I've been struggling with this.

Therefore, this morning, recognizing what I was feeling inside, I turned to Psalm 73. The psalmist Asaph faced the same kind of situation I was faced with. He wrote Psalm 73 because he was envious of the prosperity of the wicked people that he knew. He was irked by them. He had tried to live a good life, and he seemed to be getting nowhere, whereas the bad people seemed to get along just fine. However, despite the psalmist's intense feelings about this, he was careful how he expressed his complaint. He had a holy fear of how his words would affect others. He said, "All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence...If I had said, "I will speak thus," I would have betrayed the generation of Your children." Psalm 73:13,15 The psalmist was restrained in his speaking because of the fear of betraying the people God had put around him.

To think that our words, spoken or written, are powerful enough to betray the generation of people around us is a sobering truth. "Betray" is a strong word. It means to break faith with someone, to deceive them, or to even help their enemy who is against them. I know I would never want to do this to the people around me, and I am confident that you would not want to do that either.

I continued reading Psalm 73 in order to find out what I should talk or write about that proves my loyalty to others. The answer if found very simply and to the point in the last verses of that psalm, but most of all in the last verse. "But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works." Psalm 73:28

In prayer we need to give away our anxieties, complaints, and irritations (the things that irk us) to the Lord to take care of. But to the generation of God's children around us, we need to tell them of the faithfulness of the Lord God as our refuge. By that we prove our loyalty and care for them.

As I struggle in this lonely activity of writing, I know how desperately I'll need God's help to write those things which builds others up. But I know I'm not alone in needing God's help. Any of us who desire to speak or write as Christians will need His help so we aren't sharp, weedy, and barren.

A Matter Of Perspective

If you're like me, seventh grade art class was where we learned how to draw perspective on a flat piece of paper. We used a ruler and drew lines the way the teacher told us to. After that we learned how to make roads, houses, boxes, and fences that looked real. We moaned and groaned as we learned the technique, sure that we'd never use perspective again.

This photo that I took last week in my back yard shows perspective that can be observed in the real world. The shadows of the trees and the spit rail fence converge on a single point of focus in the distance. However, the shadows of the trees and fence spread out and get larger as they get farther from the focus. Perspective shows us the effect of distance.

As a Christian, I'd like to say that my heart, my mind, my body, and my soul are always concentrating on a single focus. I'd like to say that I am focusing on doing all things as unto the Lord. If I compare myself to obviously wicked people, I think that I'm doing pretty good. However, if I compare myself to what the Bible says, I find I am guilty of being indifferent to the Lord. I don't let him take first place in my heart.

It's a matter of perspective. Either I'm sensitive toward godly things (being focused on letting Jesus live His life through me), or else I've given myself over to satisfying myself (greedy for more and more of almost anything that gives me delight apart from Jesus).

Let me explain.

Some examples of people trying to find satisfaction by ever increasing amounts of experience might be these: those who do drugs, addicts to pornography, and participants in extreme, death defying sports. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. Ephesians 4:19 No doubt you are nodding your head along with me, convinced that this kind of sensual greed is worthy of condemnation. It's like the tree shadows in the sunlit photo getting longer and farther apart, leaving their focus behind. We'd say to ourselves, we'd never be like that! But we are like that.

How can that be?

The Holy Spirit within us nudges us with a still small voice. A Christian must be sensitive to those nudges; God's gentle leading is felt that way. We'd never want to miss those nudges and lose our focus on Christ. But it happens. How can we recognize when that begins to take place? How can we recognize when we are becoming callous to God's prompting in our lives? This word callous in Ephesians 4:19 can also be translated as being past feeling and not being sensitive. How do we recognize that we are beginning to be callous toward God, not feeling His nudges, no longer being sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit?

It's when we recognize we are starting to find our delight in all kinds of things that move us farther away from Jesus. It's when a variety of experiences spread out, enticing us away from our focus. The word "dissipation"describes this situation. Dissipation means "to scatter, to waste, to spend much time and energy on indulging in pleasure".

We'll find our own places of dissipation if we lose our focus on Jesus. For me, it's overeating. It's visiting bookstores. It's an obsession to keep up with the news. For you it might be clothes shopping or collecting new recipes. It might even be busyness in ministry or surfing the net. All of these activities can be good when done under the Lordship of Jesus. But when we find ourselves spreading out and expanding these activities to get more and more personal satisfaction out of them, we're no different than a drug addict looking for the next high.

We need to look at the shadows of our lives. Are they pointed toward a single focus? Or are they spreading out in dissipation?

If we find we are far from our Lord, not being sensitive to the Holy Spirit, and not feeling God's leading in our lives, the remedy is simple. We need to turn from our dissipation's, and focus on Jesus!