A piece I’d written on hospitality appeared on the Upper
Room devotional site recently. Is it a coincidence
that we had a rush of guests and requests for visits round about the same time? My parents stayed for a weekend, my cousin
flew out from England for a week-long visit, a missionary friend asked if she
could stay for a week in November, and a New Zealand friend asked if she could visit
in January. Now it’s great to see all
these people, but we’d never had so many house guests in such a short period. I couldn’t help thinking that God was
prompting me to apply the hospitality lesson I’d advocated in that devotion.
One of the editors from the Upper Room also asked if I could
do an additional blog post for the web site. I wrote a piece about how God had challenged
me to go part-time in my job so that I could spend more time writing. As I sent off my faith-filled blog, I joked
to my husband that I wouldn’t be surprised if God tested me on that too. A few days later, God did indeed challenge me
to take an even bigger leap of faith. How
could I fail to do what He’d asked, knowing that my article was about to
appear? So I took a deep breath and
stepped out again.
The lesson in all of this is that we should just write bland,
unchallenging material so that God won’t ask us to do anything about it. No wait, that’s not it! Though my husband did say I should check with
him before sending anything else out. J
God wants us to practise what we preach, or maybe in our
case, “walk what we write”. I’d like to say that I have this principle
nailed, but I don’t always get it right.
For the last few years, I’ve contributed pieces to an American
devotional book and I often find myself reading something I’d written a year
before and thinking, “Whoops … haven’t been doing that”. Fortunately, God is
ever patient and merciful. He doesn’t
expect us to be perfect, but He does want us to try to live the things we’re
writing about.
In James 1:22, we’re told “do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” Maybe as writers, we could add, “do not
merely write the word … do what it says”.
It’s not always easy, but it certainly makes for a more authentic
witness. Isn’t it wonderful to know that
God is so intimately concerned with our writing endeavours, that He takes them
seriously and uses them to mould us into the people He wants us to be?
I'd be interested to hear about times you’ve been
challenged to apply something you’d already written.
Nola Passmore is a freelance
writer who has had more than 90 short pieces published in various magazines,
journals, and anthologies (including true stories, devotions, poetry and short
fiction). She has a passion for writing about what God has done in her life and
encouraging others to do the same. (Some call it "nagging", but she
calls it "encouragement").
