In 2015, why blog? This is no longer trendy and you have a lot to lose by putting yourself out there this way.
A few years ago, I went to a giant conference in Kansas City put on by the International House of Prayer called One Thing. As I was sitting in the prayer room, frankly "worshipped out" and just exhaustedly scanning the room I started thinking about who I was and what God could possibly want from me in my life. When you go to an event like that, there are plenty of people that appear to be a lot more qualified than you to do anything.
I'm an awkward person in many ways. I'm naturally extremely shy. Shy might be too polite of a word for it. I guess I just wear my insecurities on my sleeve. It's hard for me to talk to people unless I know them well, and even then it often seems like I hold myself back. What can God do with that?
A song happened to be playing at the time. I have no idea what the name of the song was and honestly, musically and lyrically it was not the best song I heard the conference. But I can still remember the lyric that caught my ear: "You call things forth though mature they are not. You evaluate with eyes that are different. Though I fall a thousand times, I'll get up every time for You delight in mercy and forgiveness."
I feel unqualified to lead in the church. To lead even in my own life. I can clearly see a million ways that I'm a mess. I have a tendency of focusing on that to the exclusion of all else. I look around the room and see people who are comfortable speaking, singing, dancing, living a faith which is loud and bold and I feel like there is something wrong with me. Something I'm missing.
But scanning the room, I realized that even though it was easier to identify those who were "loud" in their praise there were also many other people who were encountering God in a quieter way. It occurred to me suddenly that there was nothing about the volume of someone's worship that guaranteed its authenticity or intensity. I would never accuse anyone else who was busy writing in a journal that they were not feeling God to the same degree as someone else who was speaking in tongues with arms raised high.
So why am I so judgmental of myself? I believe that God gave me a gift. However poorly I express myself in speech, my thoughts and feelings flow on paper. If writing is the gift that God gave me, it's a sin to not put effort into developing that gift. Being afraid of falling on my face is nonsense. Of course I'm going to fall on my face as an immature writer, an immature soul. But God evaluates with eyes that are different.
So here we are. The Great Writing Experiment of 2015. Here is to developing my voice and finding the discipline to write when I have other more pressing things to do.
