If You Don’t Know
If you don’t know what you’re trying to say…
When I first became acquainted with the writing community they began asking questions. Questions such as why are you writing? What are you trying to say? What’s important to you (what’s your platform)? And I thought, I just wrote a story and I’m trying to get it published, what’s with all the bare your soul questions?
Yes, I did know the reason for the questions, but they were inconvenient besides they required thought—sometimes deep thought. And honesty bordering on the soul-baring experience. As I’ve continued in this writing community I realized how gut-wrenching the answers can be. Some writers write for profit. They study the craft of writing, and they can put words and stories on paper and make money at it. In short, they enjoy writing and it can be profitable. As a teacher of my children, the curriculum we used was a Christian curriculum and one of the points first and foremost was as a Christian our goal should be to show God’s glory to others. It wasn’t to merely gain monetarily. I’ve taught that, and I believe that, but the difficult part is doing that.
The questions then get you past the putting words on the page and translate the writer’s heart into words. There are many things in a Christian writer’s heart but how do we reflect the love of a loving God to a hurting, searching world? That is how we got to the first statement: If you don’t know what you’re trying to say… there are many endings for that—it could be, you’ll never know when you’ve said it, you’ll flounder around and say it badly, or you must figure it out in order to communicate well.
The love of God is so far above our human experience that only as loving parents can we even begin to fathom that love. As we watch our children grow throughout their lives we get an inkling of God’s love. We want them to grow up happy, healthy, and well-adjusted. Our minds understand we can’t take away the struggles they will have, in some cases the pain and frustration is all a necessary element of life.
We as parents must do more than watch but… The best we can do is teach and show them how to deal with circumstances because no one controls the things that happen to them. We are in control or should be in control of how we respond.
I confess I don’t understand how God could stand aside while his son came to this earth, lived and suffered as a man, then paid the ultimate sacrifice by giving his life, the innocent for the guilty to buy us back from Satan. But he did, and that’s the good news—the gospel and its heart.
John 3:
14) And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
15) That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
16) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17) For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18) He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
