Remember that blog post that I told you all that God was my inspiration? Yeah, well that’s still true, but it’s not as simple as I implied. When I’m writing, I still look to God to get my creative juices flowing; however, the problem lies in my human nature. With God being my inspiration behind my writing, it causes me to look outward—beyond myself in order to spark my creativity. Nonetheless, my human nature causes me to look towards self, which in turn squelches my creativity. It is human nature to doubt oneself.
Over the past week, I struggled with loading a blog post because I was overanalyzing everything. While going about my daily activities, I didn’t have any post ideas that came to mind. Thus, I rarely sat down in front of my laptop to type up anything because I figured, “Well, maybe I don’t have anything to talk about this week. I can’t think of anything to write about while picking up my groceries, so it must be writer’s block that’s causing me to draw this blank.” Truth is I never even gave it a chance. The time that I did sit down in front of my laptop wasn’t long at all. Plus, my laptop may have been there, but my mind wasn’t.
There’s always this nagging fear in the back of my mind like, “Oh no, why did I start this blog? What if I run out of things to talk about?!” Again, this is me overanalyzing, limiting my talent to my mere human ability. Nevertheless, I’ve been learning that I have to be intentional about adjusting my focus—my focus towards God since He’s the one who prepared me to walk into that creativity. Being intentional about maintaining my focus requires faith in action. My faith—God will lead and guide me on what to post about. My action—sit in front of that laptop or with that notebook and pen and trust that God will inspire me. What good is it if I believe that God will give me the words to write in my heart, but I never take the time to spend with God to be inspired nor do I even open my laptop allowing Him to speak to me in that moment?
God is gracious, so yes, sometimes He will kindly drop something in my heart while I’m doing a monotonous task like grocery shopping. Other times, He requires some effort on my part—not effort in the sense of “I have to work in order to earn God’s blessings of ideas,” rather effort of applying faith, which He is the giver of anyway. (How awesome is that ?) My faith in action is me showing God, “Hey, I’m ready, willing, and able to be a vessel for you. Speak through me.” It’s sort of like someone giving you a gift. No, you didn’t earn it because it was a gift, but you still have to unwrap the gift to see what’s in it. (Do you really consider unwrapping the gift as work? Come on now. You can’t seriously believe it does. If you do, then child labor laws should definitely come into play the next time Christmas comes around.)
It’s a constant fight between fleshly desires and spirituality. My flesh wants to write something that impresses the people, but the reality is that I’m performing for an audience of One. The residual effect is people being encouraged and inspired by my writing. What’s the moral of this story? I must get out of my own way and I must apply my faith. I will not allow my gift of writing to be limited to my mere human ability when it was God who gave it to me in the first place. I shall turn to Him.
journeytojurist 