Into the Fire

I apologize right now to any and all intellectuals who might have stumbled upon this blog. Because I can assure you I am not an intellectual. On the contrary, in comparison I’m a dummy if what you consider to be superior exercising of brain cells is to consider the art created more important than the Creator of talents and gifts.

I cannot adhere to those who expound on certain types of writing as being “holier” and more profound, more intellectually satisfying, because of certain methods and types of a writer’s creative choices. Forgive me if that sounds boorish to you.

I am, and I know many of you are, too, weary of the “quality” writing thing. I think it’s a given there are some inferior books produced by probably every publisher in the entire world, but for every inferior book produced, chances are somebody loved it. Yeah, somebody.

One has only to look at creation to see how endless God’s ideas are. Insects, animals, fish, flowers, sunsets, sunrises, the human race. How could anyone pretend to think one individual’s offering given in obedience to the Lord is less than another’s also done in obedience?

Some of us will never be offered a publishing contract, and the fact is some of us probably are not very good writers. However, if you offer someone else a chance to read something you’ve written, and it touches his life somehow, is it a failure because it will never be enclosed between a cover?

Good grief, I’m frustrated by some things I read, extolling the extravagant virtues of some writers while denigrating the writing of those with a different style. I’m tired of reading about the mind games played by secular authors as to their muse or why they write. What difference does it really make? In the long run, what difference? Yeah, there are things we have in common as writers, places we need to be inside our heads, our lives, our practices. Those things do tend to make us unique, but then don’t ya just suppose there are equal things that make truck drivers, steel workers, lab technicians, retail clerks unique too? Or is it more important, more special, even more unique for us because we “create” things? We’re writers, after all. (Project nose high in the air.)

I’m even more tired of those who expound on the poverty of quality writing in Christian fiction citing their own opinions of profundity as if they have been appointed by some ethereal judge. Crass arrogance.

You know what really matters? Only the things that are done in obedience and humility to the Lord Jesus Christ. Frankly, to hell with the rest of it. Some things are incidental, provided for our pleasure by a kind, benevolent, and even fun-loving Lord, but if you want to know what really matters and then do it—listen to the Holy Spirit and obey His leading. Because all the rest of it will be burned up. So much chaff set ablaze and destroyed as worthless and unvalued.

Here’s to writing in obedience to God. That’s our best effort. That’s what He expects and deserves. Do it as your holy offering. He asked you to do it. And He is no respecter of persons, unlike those critics who try to bog you down with intellectualizing your creativity.

There is value and virtue in the intellectual mind provided all credit for it is given to the One who gave it to the individual. And provided it doesn’t allow for proud proclamations of superiority in taste and talent. We are all just people after all. No more, no less. We are who we are, and we can always get better, but the only way to do that is to find the path designed just for us, and it always leads to the Cross, where all our inferiority is laid bare before the One who gave His life to salvage the piles of garbage kneeling there.

Dear God, you know I’m facing a heap of chaff, so in this present time and the time I have left on planet earth, I ask you to help me eliminate the chaff in my life. Increase my obedience and give me your perspective in all things. I want more of you and less of me daily. Please, God, in the Name of your Son Jesus Christ, Amen.