I’ve spent more time, energy and resources on my blog in recent months. This often brings a question to mind: “Why do I write?”
I have something to say
For the first couple months after my marriage I didn’t write anything at all. When I decided to blog again, I wrestled through the question of ‘Why’. I settled on a few simple answers: 1. I enjoy writing; 2. It brings me life; 3. I’m good at it. So I kept writing. I promoted my blog meagerly on social media and got a few friends reading what I was saying.
Several weeks later I got some feedback on my writing from a man who’s come to know me well. He made some comments on style. Then he said this:
“You have something to say.”
Those words resonated in my spirit. I said, “That’s it! That’s why I write!” I don’t yet know what the ‘something’ is, how it will sound for me to say it, or who will be listening when it’s said. But I know that the Father of Divine Inspiration has given me something to say.
Building my Soapbox
I’ve noticed in myself a pattern. My primary response, when the Lord reveals to me a gift, is to work to make that gift manifest in my life. God reveals to me that I might have a gift of leadership. I try to insert myself into the position of a leader. The Lord reveals to me that I have something say. I go looking around corners to find what kind of thing I’m supposed to say. I try get people to listen even though, “I have something to say” gives me no indication that anybody will ever listen. I strive to validate what the Lord is saying. As if he needs me to prove it.
The Lord told me that I have something to say. Over the past couple weeks I’m afraid I’ve been trying to build a soapbox from which to say it. At the beginning of last week I wrote a post about how we relate to a local church. The next day I wrote a follow-up post. I sat at my coffee table tapping out the words. I hadn’t been sure of anything I was saying. In fact I was just processing thoughts that were wholly new to me. I got to the end and wasn’t totally comfortable with the apparent conclusions I had made. I wasn’t sure I believed what I had typed — after all I was just processing. I wasn’t actually done with the thoughts. But I published it anyway.
I had decided, without any prompting from the Lord, that the ‘something’ I had to say would be provocative. It would move people. It would cause them to think, to converse, to reevaluate their previous notions. So I set out to do that. I set out to say something provocative and conversational with no awareness of whether it not was actually true!
To Honor my Father & To Honor myself
The trouble with the approach I took is that it doesn’t honor my Heavenly Father and it doesn’t honor the word he spoke over me. I operate with a working definition of honor as “to say of people what God is saying of them.”
God said He will provide for my every need. I said that, while he might give me something to say, I would have to create the environment in which to say it. God said he had given me something to say. I said that what I had to say wasn’t good enough. I needed to, all on my own, come up with something to say that would move readers in the direction I thought it should.
The Truth about Blogging
There are a lot of folks saying things these days. I’m not convinced many of them have something to say. This is why I thought I could make a success out of blogging. I see a lot of people who are successful bloggers not necessarily by saying anything meaningful, but by working the system. They post at least three times a week. They get themselves a high google page rank and they make sure they’re writing guest posts. I know because I read their blogs.
Then there are the folks who are blogging successfully who do sound like they have something to offer. You know what they say? “Never publish something you’re not proud of.” Jesus would say it like this, “I only say what I hear the Father saying.”
Just before, and for a while after, I clicked “Publish” on my second post last week (which has since been removed, sorry if you missed it) I wasn’t proud of it. I didn’t feel comfortable with where I had been in my thought process. I said something that I hadn’t first heard the Father saying.
See, if one day God is going to give me SOMETHING to say, I need to make sure people know that I’m always saying SOMETHING. The guidelines need to be more than “is it something provocative?” or “is it ‘sticky’?” — whatever that means. I need to, every day, say only what I hear the Father saying. Then, one day, the Father through me will be saying SOMETHING.