“Why Write?”
Ever muttered those words to yourself?
“I’ve been writing for years now. Yet, my Twitter followers are few and far-between compared to secular writers. If only I had 67.2K like James Patterson.”
Ever think those kinds of thoughts?
“My Facebook friends seem fickle and flighty. When I post about a new blog entry or a new book, they say they ‘like’ my posts, but few ever say they actually read it. Hardly any of them comment on it.”
Ever wonder about these things?
If you allow yourself, it’s easy, as a writer, to throw a pity party. Every profession has their pity party planners. They circle the wagons often, making sure they encapsulate every other like-minded party goer, who can pat them on the back and “encourage them” in their defeated, idiomatic existence. I’m an educator. There are many pity party planners right now in the teaching ranks. You think you have it tough as a writer?
Yet, as I shift gears into 2015 and rethink some of my writing plans, I have been wondering how God would have fared if He approached things the way we do.
In the beginning, He writes the first set of organized words for His people in Exodus 20. Within days, those “books” are literally destroyed by His distributor, Moses (Exodus 32). So, He has to have them reprinted (Exodus 34).
Once those writings were distributed to the people, they are first met with hoopla and holiday spirit (Exodus 35-40). However, it didn’t take long for those same words to become despised, ignored, and eventually forgotten (Numbers 11 is where it all starts).
God’s readership sank to the bottom of the “Mesopotamian Booksellers Hot Releases List” time and time again. For decades, while in captivity, God’s Word was nowhere to be found in Babylon or Assyria. It finally was unearthed by Hilkiah the priest under the reign of Josiah in 2 Kings 22 (also, 2 Chronicles 34) after the Hebrews had been back in the Promised Land for some time under the reign of Hezekiah.
On and on the story goes. God’s first book, in the beginning, wasn’t very popular. Yet, did God give up? Of course not. Even when it went “out of print,” He never gave up. Why? Because He believed in what He wrote. That’s why He wrote the sequel (the New Testament).
He knew these two “books” would change lives.
For eternity.
Do you write to change lives for eternity? If so, then don’t be surprised if you’re not “popular” in this anti-God, anti-Christian world which grows increasingly darker with each passing day. There weren’t too many people getting “saved” as the Israelites were being hauled off to Babylon and Assyria. As the Romans swept across the Sinai Peninsula and descended into what is now North Africa, the “books” still languished in “sales.” When the sequel went into print, then the “sales” improved.
So, don’t walk away from your computer downtrodden because you only gained ten Twitter followers this week and lost four. It took God a long while before His writing plan “took off,” too.
Don’t give up. Write with the heart of God, and He will reward your faithfulness in the places it matters most (Matthew 6:33).
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