Have you ever felt you were floundering in your Christian life and feel cut off from God? What can you do about to restore that fellowship with the Lord? Earlier this year I felt in this position- that I needed to find a way back closer to the Lord.
Every time a manuscript came back rejected, instead of seeing it as part of the writer’s natural experience, I became depressed. When other things piled up and life did not go smoothly I found it increasingly hard to deal with, plus at the time was my health was far from good. Feeling spiritually dry, the passage I read that day was Galatians 6:1-10 which talked about restoring others when they have sinned. At the time I was only too well aware that I needed to restore myself.
As part of that restoring I decided I to examine my work, as suggested in Galatians 6:4. My work revolves around writing. I decided I needed to see where my writing needed to be improved or where I needed to change focus. To what was I sowing? Was I sowing to the eternal kingdom? Or recognition for myself?
God showed me I needed to be ‘doing good’ for others with my writing. Whether than necessarily meant Christian writing, was something I needed to decide. Could it not simply be writing positive, fun books for children that gave hope rather than some of the bleak books currently in the market place?
God’s Word cautioned me not to be deceived. ‘God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap,’ v7. So, if I could be sure I was’ doing good’ v9 the encouragement was not to lose heart for in due time I would reap a harvest if I did not grow weary. But weary was exactly what I felt at the time. Weary and feeling like giving up. As I looked at my bible I saw from the dates written next to the verse, the number of times God had encouraged me over the years with this promise.
The next verse made me think. ‘So then, while we have opportunity, let us to good to all men and especially to those who are of the household of the faith,’ verse 10. I took that to mean writing to Christians. Where presented a problem. In Australia the Christian market is miniscule. We do not have the plethora of magazines that you have in the USA. God had gone before.
Back in August 2006 I’d applied to Families.com and been put on a reserve list for bloggers. As so often in the writing life, it was back to the waiting game. Then in April this year I received an e mail asking if I was still interested. So here I am and enjoying writing these blogs. Hopefully some of what I share from my experience will encourage and help others. If you’re finding them helpful, I’d love to know.
Recently I was also privileged to participate in the Alpha 2 Omega Literary and Dramatic Arts convention held in Brisbane, Australia. The opportunity to meet, encourage and talk with other Christian writers and in turn be encouraged by them was a great blessing. I no longer feel I am floundering in the Christian life. God indeed blesses us when we seek His guidance, seek to do His Will and draw closer to Him.