Encouragement

A few days ago, Rachelle Gardner reposted a post about encouragement. I heard of one pastor who said that he doesn’t believe church staff workers need encouragement because only those who are truly passionate about what they do should be doing what they do. I won’t go that far because there are things that get us down from time to time, but I have seen enough church workers put in long hours at a job that only the Lord will notice to know that there is some truth in what he said. Even if he were completely correct, we should encourage each other because God commands it (Hebrews 10:25).

Rachelle was talking about the need writers have for encouragement. They are looking for someone to say, “you can do it,” or something like that. I was sitting in my living room and looking at the painting you see here. If you can’t tell by the signature on the painting, I am the artist. When I painted it, I wasn’t trying to paint something that someone would purchase or hang in an art gallery. I didn’t care if anyone else liked it or not. All I wanted was a large painting to hang above my couch. If other people like it, that’s fine. If people hate it, that’s fine too because I don’t really care. I am not going to become discouraged if someone doesn’t like it. The comments of others will not prevent me from painting again.

As writers, we should take the same attitude. We should not write for the praise of others. Yes, we should enjoy it when it comes and we should learn from negative comments we receive, but we should never base our motivation on what others have to say. If we get enjoyment from writing and feel that we are accomplishing something then that should be enough. We should write the story that we wish to read and that should be sufficient. If we require the praise of others then we are doing it for the wrong reason.