Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Not Called to Write

Terry Burns recently wrote about the calling to write. Some people talk about the calling to write. When you think about it, that sort of leaves the rest of us out in the cold. Who are we to say we even have the right to call ourselves writers if others are called by God to write, but we are not?


What I like about what Terry said is that he called what the rest of us do an offering. There’s an awful lot of stuff I do that I wouldn’t consider a calling. I work with kids in our church’s Awana program. While I enjoy doing that, I don’t see that as a calling. But that isn’t to say that isn’t to say that I’m doing it for myself; it is an offering. The stuff I do with our church’s website: that is more of a calling. I won’t go into how I know the difference. The point is that there are some things we are called to do and some things that we simply offer up to God as we worship him.


If you are called to write, great, but there is no sin in writing if you just have a desire to write and want to offer your talent to the Lord. Certainly, if you are called to write, then it would be a sin for you to refuse, but not having a calling to write doesn’t decrease the value of the offering. So we put our words on paper or on a blog and we hold it up to God. Take my words, formed in my inability, and with your ability, use them for your glory.


Question: Do you feel called to write? Would it make you feel different about writing if you were? Weren't?