To My Writer-Friends

Writer friends, here’s something you need to know…

If you are looking for approval, understanding or adoring fans, you are in the wrong field. In fact, you may want to stop writing right now.

If I have learned anything in the past 6 years of my writing ministry, it’s that every time I write, it will be read by 3 distinct kinds of people: someone who loves me; someone who has heard something about me; and someone who flat out doesn’t like me at all. In fact, the more I write, the more I find group # three grows.

When the critics increase, the tendency is to want to hold back the musings of our heart. Within the beauty of honesty comes the possibility of being misunderstood, judged or criticized. Sometimes the fear of that becomes a writer’s greatest obstacle and they loose the grasp of the raw feelings that made their writing real and relatable in the first place. Sadly, the noise of the critics has gotten into their head, causing them to hold back or doubt their gift.

But then there are those who push through and continue on. They are the ones who write with a purpose beyond needing to get their feelings off their chest. They are the ones driven by their passion for a cause or belief and the desire to help people live better; they are the ones who don’t write to have someone remember their name.

Those in this group are keenly aware that the words they use should be weighed and considered before using them. If they can’t own a word or explain it after it’s become visible, it has to be ditched.

Those who press on understand that the impact of their writing comes when people relate to them as real people with real struggles and real feelings. Wearing the role of a robot doesn’t require vulnerability and could prevent some hurt, but no one I know of has ever been inspired by a cold, pretend person with no soul.

So my writer friends…keep writing. Keep sharing your heart. Don’t be afraid of the critics. Understand that having people agree with you all the time is not the goal. If you have only fans, it is likely you are not as effective as you think you are.

Stir up your reader’s hearts, minds and souls and then show them what to do with that stirring. That's when your writing becomes relevant.

Thicken your skin without hardening your heart. {Tough, but vital.}

Keep your head down and your heart humble. The rest you can’t control.

Your gift is unique and special. Share it freely and don't be afraid of the risk.

What I'm Thinking About

I'm thinking about these things today…

Success.

Love.

Endurance.

Faith.

It’s funny how different these things are defined when circumstances vary.

For my friend with cancer, faith is about something different than it is for me, without it.

Those who don’t have a current large-scale life struggle likely see faith as an amazing Biblical concept that they secretly hope isn’t tested for them like it is in others. But then, as life produces unpredictability, faith becomes something more impossible to live without.

Endurance sounds awesome, in concept. Flashes of running through marathon tape and looking down from the peak of a massive mountain make for spectacular Hallmark-ish thoughts. Often motivated by the idea, we almost forget that sweat, blood and tears usually have to be shed before any glorious scene of triumph occurs.

And then there’s love.

It’s cool to be in love with someone when it feels good. What’s a whole lot harder is when it takes work and effort to keep that love going. Harder still is loving someone through darkness or pain, sorrow or complete ugliness. That’s love when it really counts.

Success is such a tough one. Really, it depends on what kind of outside noise you listen to, where your belief lies and how much you pursue what you were put on earth to do. It’s hard to see the success in a day you got to breathe when you are stuck on a failure you can’t seem to get past.

So, I’m thinking about these things today. Maybe I can get you to think about them, too.

Because I'm pretty sure our circumstances will, at some point, vary...causing our definitions of these things to drastically change.

That might not be a bad thing.

In the End

Stay in the journey.

This is a phrase I have heard my mentor and friend, Monty, say a lot over the years since I’ve known him. I {pretty much} knew what it meant, but I never really knew exactly what it meant to him. But in the 10 years he’s been speaking truth into my life, I’ve never known Monty to ever say anything non-weighed or short of purposeful. So I knew it held significance.

Over yesterday’s lunch he explained himself.

He was talking to a group of us about how he, at one point in his life, felt stuck. His circumstances weren’t cooperating with his desires or needs, and he was left to drill down and dig deep to sort things out: two things that are usually about as fun as the root canal they represent.

As in typical Monty fashion, he began to get creative with this struggle. He knew that there were many things he could not control or make happen. But he also knew that there were some things he had the power to change. With that thought in mind, he decided to go on a Biblical word search of sorts – to choose some words in the Word to study and dedicate himself to implementing in his life. To get started, he chose the word, “faithfulness.”

Thus began his pursuit of a spiritual discipline most of us want, love the idea of, and bumble over, all at the same time.

Because remaining faithful to God is hard, sometimes.

We pray and in 3 days do not see results, and we question His level of care for us.

Or…we struggle and think there is something He should do about it, since He’s the One who is supposed to save.

But as Monty pointed out, “faithfulness” has delayed spiritual rewards – it’s the one thing {besides judgment} that the Word says will be given its proper result later. It’s not instant, which is why we bumble over it. We’re used to getting what we want right here, right now. And that plays into our view of God and what we think He should do for us – a little like instant oatmeal.

After this conversation, I thought about me. Today, I wonder about you.

Are you staying in the journey? Or are you bailing because things are a little tougher than you prefer?

The encouragement I offer you in this post is something of only 4 words. But please know that though it may be short and to the point, it is anything but simple.

See your commitment through.

Even when you don’t feel like it. Even when it doesn’t seem to make sense. And despite the fact that you can’t yet feel the fullness of having God find you faithful. Not now. Not yet.

But that day will come. And though I have no clue exactly what that specific reward will be, I have every belief that it will be well worth it. God doesn’t do anything second class.

So…stay in the journey, friends. Drill down, dig deep and believe the promise of God.

See your commitment through. Stay the course. Remain faithful.

II Samuel 22:26: “To the faithful you show yourself faithful…”

A Forgotten Discipline

Something a Facebook friend wrote on his wall yesterday really stuck with me. Because I don’t know if he would want to be quoted, (and I wrote this before I asked him ) I have decided to paraphrase it for you. Basically he said that if he were paid money for every time a follower of Jesus Christ criticized another, he would be a rich man.

It reminded me of something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately…

The forgotten principal of restraint.

I think it’s been proven by our reputation for spiritual catfights that we are a people who love to get things off our chest. Running our mouth, we are good at. When it comes to saying the first thing that comes to our mind, we do well, too. And when something really messes with our insides, we have no qualms about making sure that at the very least, we let someone besides us know.

We even use God sometimes in our right fighting. One of our primary uses of this is when we reference a Scripture to threaten, accuse or imply things we are angry or irritated about, yet feel we need back up to support. Though, as followers of God, aren’t we supposed to follow His example…practice His behavior?

Consider Isaiah 53: 7…
“He was beaten, He was tortured, but He didn’t say a word.” {msg}

Now if ever there was a time for protesting, this was His moment. If He ever wanted to cite the wrongs against Him, it would have been then. But instead, He practiced the supernatural principle of restraint.

I’m wondering…where has that principal gone?

I’m afraid it’s been replaced with our over-spiritualized view of ourselves. We throw Scripture out when it is convenient for us, often with a peppering of our own opinion and pieces of our own baggage. Sometimes, it’s just more convenient to throw hurtful words at one another than drill down on what is really going on inside our own soul.

How do we justify it? We tell ourselves we should be able to say whatever we want to say. If we feel it, it has to be shared. If we know something we consider news worthy about someone else, we feel suddenly and conveniently spiritual enough to be the one to help others “see the light” about something or someone.

It leaves me thinking about the fact that though we have the freedom to say what we want; it takes much more courage and character to refrain from it.

I’m assuming here, but I think that one of the goals Jesus had in keeping silent was to keep mob-like behavior from further breaking out. Because of His infinite wisdom, I believe that He knew how powerful any word He spoke would be at that moment, and He chose His words specifically and carefully, with thought to the result. He possessed the kind of holiness that innately knew those kinds of things.

Jesus practiced the beautiful principle of restraint.

And yet, we have someone who hurts us and we lash back with holier-than-though vengeance. We experience something we don’t like, and we do and say everything in our power to create a victim in ourselves. We shout from the rooftops when we feel someone is against us, yet we expect nothing less than the gracious benefit of the doubt from others.

We hurt each other, believers, because we do not practice the principal of Godly restraint.

The question then becomes: don’t we need to admonish each other in the Word? Don’t we need to confront one another in love when we know they have done wrong?

Yes, Scripture talks about that. Yes, I think it is right, in certain circumstances. But I’m not delving into that right now because that is not what this post is about.

And the reality is, most of us don’t know how to do that without adding our baggage, feelings or opinions into it. Most of us don’t fall in the category of one who admonishes in the Word. Instead, we are typically more in the category of one who needs to feel better by verbally accosting someone else.

So until we are living holy enough to know what time that is, I highly propose that it would be better to say nothing at all. Working on holiness is our first order of business. When we do, suddenly this issue becomes less complicated.

Bottom line:

Can we? Yes.

Do we want to? Oh, so bad.

Would He? Maybe not.

Let’s recommit to following His example and practicing the powerful principal of restraint. I think we’ve given people courtside seats to our battles long enough.

Hey Marriages -- We Need Help.

I’ve been talking to God today about marriage. Actually, I woke up with it on my brain, knowing I was supposed to write about it. Yet I didn’t want to.

For one thing, it’s a tough topic for me because like most every other woman I know, I struggle to be the kind of wife I need to be. I walk around with certain moments of guilt about how I’m not doing and being everything my marriage needs me to be. And it’s difficult to be vulnerable enough to speak truth about marriage when everything in our Christian society tells us to hold it together, keep it quiet, and pretend really well. Meanwhile, we continue to exist with less than half the marriage God intended us to have. Here’s the hard cold truth: many of us hang on rather than feel fulfilled. Some of us endure but don’t enjoy. Lots of us perfect the act of a married couple but never really realize the dream of the partnership we all long for.

People, it’s all of us…at some point…to some degree.

The other thing that plays into my lack of desire to talk about marriage is the fact that so many of my friends are hurting in this area right now. I have always talked with women who were dealing with the issue of being a wife, but this somehow feels different. I have never before seen the outright assault on marriages I am seeing today. It is frightening, alarming and discouraging. It has reminded me that all of us doing this marriage thing are basically swimming upstream in a small paddleboat with no working equipment. Period.

Look, I don’t pretend to know everything (or anything, for that matter) about other people’s specific marriage journey. And nothing I write in this note is written with someone’s marriage in mind but my own. The truth is that I don’t need to call out specifics in order to share what God has put on my heart on this subject.

But I should tell you that you may not like the conclusion I’ve come to. Because it’s really about being a doer of the Word, and that thought sounds as tough as it is.

Now before you pull out the cynical card and assume I am going to bash you over the head with a cocktail of Scriptures about why you are sinning if you get out of your marriage, please save yourself the trouble and don’t. I doubt I’m going where you think I am.

Where I’m going is just to be honest and tell you that there are days I have wanted to give up, too. There are times I feel like I am in the movie Groundhog Day and I am reliving the same conversation/argument/frustration I have lived multiple times before. There are moments I do not have the confidence that either one of us will ever change what we need to change to be what we need each other to be. I’m not supposed to tell you that, but I don’t care. I almost wouldn’t listen to someone who didn’t tell you something along these lines because I don’t believe they are honest.

But despite those truthful feelings, here’s what God laid on my heart about marriage today…

Often, we hurt each other with our words. The book of James talks about how powerful and hurtful our tongue can be, and never is that so true than in a marriage when we slice and dice with what we say…out of frustration, pain or selfishness.

Sometimes, we withhold grace from each other. They make us mad and we let them know it. We rarely give them the benefit of the doubt. We judge, assume and accuse. Yet the book of Romans (among others) talks a lot about the importance of giving more grace.

Regularly, we feed our flesh. Among our greatest flesh-feeding frenzies are things like not wanting to work on things that are too hard, not wanting to face things we need to personally change, and wanting to live hedonistically with things that only feel good. Most of the time these things don’t have us running to the book of John to hear about how this flesh feed turns out.

I write this today, not sitting in judgment of anyone or having anyone’s marriage in mind. I am keenly aware that some of you reading have been the victim of someone's else's decisions, and you didn't ask for any of it. (While you would certainly recognize you aren't perfect, you have fought for a marriage your spouse did not want in the same way. There is another message for you in another blog at another time. But there is still a bigger message for you about your spiritual journey in this post that I pray you find.) But I write this today because as I journey in my own marriage, I am reminded of how important it is to be aware of what is going on, recognize it in my life, read what the Word says, and then do it.

Because I believe that at the very core of every marriage issue lies a spiritual issue that were we to practice the truth of the Word, it would change.

We can fight it, resent it, and read 3 zillion marriage fix-it books in the meantime, but it doesn’t move us away from the reality that the only way to have a good, enjoyable marriage is to do what the Word says to do to make us the person we need to be.

All the other excuses we give don’t change that, and all the shortcuts we try in between won’t, either. At some point we have to drill down and see where the truth of God’s Word is different from our life, we must change.

If I wait to feel like it, I never will.

But if the truths in the Word deliver what they promise, it is more than worth my effort.

I am praying for a group of married people to have the courage to rise up, see the issues, call them what they are, and do the work. Will you join me in the effort?

I just happen to believe that if we will, Satan may start to get really disappointed by the results.

Dear God, help us in our marriages. You know how bad we need it.

Amen.

I Don't Know How

I have a confession to make that will probably not come as a big surprise to you. In fact, I think I may have confessed it before.

I often try to sort out my life.

I enjoy knowing the end outcome. I like to have everything categorized, sorted through, and determined. And if I can slap a label on it at the end of the process, my mind tells me I have really scored.

You can imagine, then, my concern when I heard myself praying these words over and over this morning during a conversation with God…

God, I don’t know how.

It didn’t shock me to say it, since I am intimately aware of the circumstances I currently live in my life. I already know that I have many unknowns and challenges and untraveled roads up ahead. Yet somehow, acknowledging that I have basically no control over both the big and small aspects of my life, left me feeling a little less secure than I am generally comfortable with. And it made me think of how many of my friends whose circumstances I am aware of might find the same words coming from their very own lips.

God, I don’t know how you are gonna do this.

God, I don’t know how you are gonna work this thing that matters to me out.

God, I don’t know how this impossible thing over here can really happen.

God, I don’t know how this miracle I believe you can perform will be performed.

This morning, not only am I thinking of my own set of I don’t know hows, but I am thinking of the I don’t know hows of many of my friends and acquaintances. I am thinking of my friend with cancer who probably doesn’t know how God is going to defy the prognosis of educated doctors and medical books and heal his body. I am thinking of my friend who doesn’t know how God is going to restore her marriage with a man who says he doesn’t even love her. I am thinking of my friend who doesn’t know how in the world he is ever going to get over the hurt that has been realized in his life. I am thinking of my friend who doesn't know how her husband will find work in time to keep her large family fed. I am thinking of my friend who doesn’t know how the dream tucked away in her heart that only she and God know about is going to ever really happen.

The truth is, there are so many things none of us know how about.

The problem is, we feel like we have to know to live, function and even, trust.

Yet, the things we think we need (the details, facts and information), we don’t really need. We don’t know…and honestly, we don’t need to know.

What we need is found in the comforting words in the latter part of Psalm 9:10: “Those who know your name trust in you, for you, O Lord, have never abandoned anyone who searches for you.”

Even though there are so many things I don’t know how about, what I do know for sure is that Jesus can be found in the search. For it is in those moments that we find what we really need to press on and move forward…the unfailing love of a Father who knows, cares, and sees. The fact that, as verse 9 tells me, He has never abandoned anyone who searches for Him, lets me know that despite my doubts, fears and honest emotions, I am not disqualified to receive His care and companionship -- during the process of not knowing how and long after I get the answers I think I need.

And so, my prayer changes.

God, I admit that I don’t know how you will sort out the details of my life. I don’t know how you will do the things that seem impossible. But I know that even if I knew, it would not change who You are. So instead, I search for You…the One who can be found in the not knowing, not seeing, and not understanding.

Great thanks.

She Seeks Speak Up Challenge

Please tell me you are like me.

You see the video rolling on the TV, showing the devastation in Haiti. You want to do something, but you look in your wallet and can't find a dime to give. You wish you could get on a plane and fly over there immediately, helping out in any way they need. The urge is there, and so is the concern. But you can't seem to find anyway to get involved, so you pray, knowing it is the only thing {and the best thing} you can really do.

I've got some good news for you. I have another way for you to get involved.

Today, over at She Seeks, we have issued a She Seeks Speak Up Challenge. Simply click here to find out more:She Seeks Speak Up Challenge

As you can see, all you have to do is invest about 6-8 minutes of your time...watching the video, sharing the link and leaving a comment on our site to let us know how you have helped spread the word. Your comments equal dollars, as our donors are paying the wonderful ministry of Compassion every time you tweet, blog, share on Facebook, or whatever other outlet you may have access to, and tell us about it. It's not complicated, and it requires very little effort.

But if you're like me, it gives you the satisfaction that you have done more than you did the day before to help people who God cares about very much.

Thanks for taking the challenge. You didn't even have to get up from your computer, and it's already making a difference.