Pursuing the Dream

After a discouraging month of writing books and receiving rejections, I wondered if God actually wanted me to quit writing. What good is it, I reasoned, if no one publishes my work? No one out there is growing in faith because I write. If publishers won’t print my words, what’s the point?

Then I went to a writers’ conference where the keynote speech was about pursuing the dream. “Why do you write?” the speaker asked. “Is it for the glory of God or for yourself?”

When I returned home, I journaled for a while and asked myself why I write. Is it truly for the glory of God or for my own acknowledgement? Am I wanting the book signings and the publicity and my name listed on the best-seller lists or do I just want to please God with the words He breathes into me?

Honestly, it’s a little of both. Yes, I want to please God, and I am thrilled when people tell me my books or my articles have nudged them just a little closer to the Divine heart. But also, the human side of me enjoys book signings and speaking and meeting more people who might want to read the words that spew out of me.

I write because I can’t NOT write. I tried to quit once, maybe twice; but couldn’t. After a week or so of resting my eyes and my fingers, I turned on the computer once again and picked up the journal and carried a legal pad to the coffee shop and let the words pour out of me as quickly as the lattes on the menu.

For some reason, God has placed this desire in my heart – this overwhelming passion to put words on the page and hope they mean something to someone. If I never make the best-seller lists, so be it. But I like to think that sometimes an angel is peeking over my shoulder and giggling at my novel or that Jesus is smiling at the latest nonfiction article. I hope that the great crowd of witnesses is cheering me on so that if my name appears on the best-seller lists, people who feel lost and depressed might buy one of my books and find hope in Jesus.

I hope that when I write, God is pleased. He gave me the ability and planted the desperate urge in me to put sentences together and blurt out stories. What He does with my sentences and the ultimate result, is up to Him. But as long as I can, I want to keep stringing words together and hopefully make a difference – either in this world or in the eternities of the people who read my blog and my stories and my articles.

So I keep pursuing the dream of being published, the desire of my heart to play out this passion throughout my lifetime and to someday meet someone who says, “Thank you for writing. It made a difference.”