Do It for You

As someone who loves to write, I've often heard the advise from fellow enthusiasts, "You have to write as if you were the only one ever going to see your work; if you keep thinking about how other people will feel about what you're writing, you are never going to love it and neither will anyone else" or some variation of this.

I think this statement is true- but it's only partially true. I've wrestled with this a whole lot because it's a statement I've always felt my gut react too; I've always felt that it wasn't fully true, but I could never say why...

The only way I can think to communicate this is with the example of physical art: It's widely accepted for an artist to feel that "it's just them and their piece, nothing else matters." This is the equivalent to an author thinking only about how she feels about her story. But here's the issue: the world is bigger than you and I. Our message, whether communicated through art or words, should be bigger than ourselves too, shouldn't it?

We must think of those receiving our work. We must consider if it will move them to action or only entertain them; we must ask ourselves if our stories are ringing true to life or if they are our own fabricated fairytale endings; we must be bold with the truth.

If our stories or art pieces are so hovered over and coddled by our personal feelings and intuition, then all we have accomplished is a work which is for us a reminder of our intrinsic flaws and for others, we've only confused or misled.

Our lives are not, in fact, individual. Neither is God's plan for us. We are unique, yes, but God doesn't have a specific plan for my life because I'm so different and talented and "shaped from a different mold." His specific plan is to bring the Gospel into every corner of the world and He will use my unique personality because He is gracious and not because I am the answer to the world's crisis.

If I am so caught up in my uniqueness that I refuse to let the Lord mold and shape me into a new being, I will never be useful to my Master. I will never be a brick who fits into His spiritual house of which Christ is the Cornerstone. My story will stay a story about self and will say nothing to the world of redemption.

So by all means, write. Write a story, even your own! But don't make it about you. Don't shield yourself from your own criticism or cleanse yourself of flaws. Don't refuse to be a Christian who confesses their sin before others: believe me, it's already known.  Every Christian's story, if truthfully told, begins with the awful, gut-wrenching reality of sin and is somewhere intercepted by the unbelievable, life-changing, reality of a Babe born in a stable.

If you don't spell out your life in terms of reality no one will ever stick with you until you reach the part about redemption...