God has been asking me for some time now, okay, years, to write for Him. For various reasons, largely involving procrastination and fear, I haven’t followed through. But He has the power to overcome my weaknesses, so here I am now, writing to whomever might find their way here. I don’t know exactly what my entries will look like, or how often I’ll write them, nor do I make any promises about their quality, but I would like to offer you this: openness and honesty and a window into the truths that God speaks to my heart. I pray they speak to yours, too.
I have to admit that I really struggled to know what to write for my first entry. I began to feel defeated and like this was a really stupid idea, and I just about gave up. But God (He always works that way, doesn’t He? When you’re just about at the end, there’s always a “But God”) brought to mind something I wrote almost two years ago. I read it and knew that I had to keep going with this. So my first entry was really written in late December of 2008:
This morning I turned on my new laptop for the first time with the intention to write. Write what? I didn’t know. I knew only that God had been telling me to write, to get up early and write for Him. I had been disobedient for some time. The excuses were many. My computer sat in the coldest corner of our house on a little coffee table, which meant I’d either have to sit on the floor and hold the keyboard in my lap, or sit in a chair and look down at the screen, squinting to see what I was writing, still holding the keyboard in my lap. And did I mention it would be drafty and cold? Certainly God didn’t want me to get up early in the morning and shiver on the floor. I would wait for a better time. And so I continued to sleep. Until Christmas. My parents got a new computer, so they just happened to have an extra laptop lying around. Here you go, God said. Now you can write comfortably by the fire, surrounded by all the conveniences you wish (heat, coffee, over-stuffed chair). Oh, but sleep is so wonderful. Nevermind that the King of the Universe, the God of all creation was born in a stable amongst some dirty barn animals, wrapped in some cloths that probably weren’t all that clean, and then set ever so gently, not in a fresh new crib with newly washed bedding, no, he was laid in a manger, a feeding trough, dirty and slimy and probably not all that warm. But I think I’ll go ahead and sleep a little longer. Yes, I have my laptop now, and my fire and my chair and my coffee, but it’s almost January First. I might as well wait until the New Year to begin a new routine. Thank you for eliminating all of my excuses, Lord, but what am I going to write anyway? I should wait for some sort of divine inspiration. Nevermind the still small voice that whispers continually in the recesses of my mind: get up early, write, write for Me.
But this morning, I happened to get up just a few minutes earlier than normal.
Not as early as God told me to, but a good five to ten minutes at least.
I finished everything that normally fills my morning before my daughter wakes up: lunch for my husband, breakfast, coffee, Bible study, prayer with my husband before he leaves for work, a little more Bible study.
And still my daughter slept.
The laptop lay still on the kitchen table, and yet I could feel it calling me.
I’m sure I don’t have much time before she wakes up, I thought.
It’s probably not even worth turning it on, just to have to turn it off again.
But I’d just read Matthew 2 and had been convicted by Joseph’s immediate obedience.
The Lord told him in a dream to leave for
Egypt.
Did he roll over and hit the snooze button so he could sleep till morning?
Did he rationalize and try to sound like the nice guy by letting his wife and baby sleep a little longer?
No.
He woke his wife and sleeping baby and left for
Egypt immediately, in the middle of the night, as soon as God told him.
And then, when the threat on Jesus’ young life was no longer, God told him to move back to
Israel.
And again, Joseph obeyed immediately.
But not to Judea, oh no, to the scorned
Nazareth.
But I’m the father of the Messiah now.
I’m somebody.
God speaks to me in dreams.
I have a role to play that affects all eternity.
I can’t live in
Nazareth.
What good can come out of
Nazareth?
None of those questions or excuses were heard from Joseph.
Just obedience.
And so here I am. Not even because I was particularly obedient, but because God really gave me no other choice. He orchestrated everything so that I’d have to be here, he took away every excuse, provided me with all the necessities, even all the amenities. And so I opened my laptop. I flipped up the screen and in the moments before the setup process started, I stared into the glossy blackness at my own reflection. Disheveled hair, bags under my eyes, battered sweatshirt that hadn’t been washed in a time frame that I’m embarrassed to admit. More excuses crowded their way in. Who am I to write for the King? I don’t really have any talent anyway. Am I really even sure He’s asking me to do this? Maybe I’m making this whole thing up, maybe I’m just a girl with a new laptop and a dream. And yet, there’s Joseph. Did he stop and think, who am I to be the father of the Messiah? I couldn’t even find a decent place for him to be born. Maybe I’m making this whole thing up, why would God talk directly to me, maybe I’m just a man with a new baby and a dream. Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t, but either way he obeyed. He was just a man, but he was also a child of God, chosen by God to raise His own son. He could have went his way, done his own thing, followed his own plan, and none of us would know who Joseph was today, and worse yet, Joseph would have missed out on an intimate relationship with God himself. But he obeyed and experienced a life beyond his wildest dreams. So maybe I am just a girl with a laptop, but I believe God is telling me to write and so here I am. From here on out, I think I’ll give up those few extra minutes of sleep. It seems that when God gives someone direction, He’s got something incredible in store. Whatever it may be, I think I’d like to find out.
What is God telling you to do? Take a chance. You just might experience a life beyond your wildest dreams.
So here I am, almost two years later, finally, really willing to be obedient. I’ve since discovered that an overstuffed chair by the fire, early in the morning, is not the best time to write. I tried that for awhile, but spent more time sleeping than writing. I’ve started writing in my car, one night a week; the only place I could think of that was quiet, close by, free, and always open. I don’t know what God has in store for this time or what will become of this blog site, but I do know what I hope. I hope that you are touched by a God who sees where you are and longs to pour His love out on you. I hope you take that love and make it your own and live in the joy that comes only from an intimate knowledge of the One who created you and breathed into you His very own breath, His very own life. And “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” ~Ephesians 3:17-19
