Today I am going to just talk about my writing. A testimony, if you will, of how I learned that God and I essentially commune with each other as I write.
It was years ago, when I lived in Abilene, that I actually learned that God speaks to me through my writing. This has actually changed my life - well in regards to my writing at least. So a couple of friends and I drove to the DFW area for a TobyMac concert during which I received this great revelation from God. I didn't really understand it to be a revelation until a day or so later. So we get to the concert just as Toby is starting and as we are looking for seats, God downloads this story idea. I pull my cell phone out and start typing the story idea down. I put my phone back in my pocket to enjoy the concert, but I get some story line ideas, so I pull my phone out again and type. This happens a few more times until I just hold my phone in my hand and wait for the next download. Needless to say, I spent the whole concert with my face buried in my phone, typing every idea God was giving me.
The next day I go to Starbucks to start my new story, and I can't seem to write much. I get through maybe half a page in an hour. My usual number of pages I get through in an hour is about three, so I knew something was up. At first I didn't understand how God could give me these ideas and not want me to write them, then it hit me. God wanted me to finish the current novel I was working on, which I went back to writing....and sure enough...three pages an hour again.
It was at this time I realized two things. First, If I had not acted at the onset of this story idea and just brushed it off to think about later, then I would not have gotten the rest of that story line-I believe I would have "shut down" the holy spirit, if you will. Second, God and I truly commune with each other when I write fiction. I don't write my stories, but WE write them TOGETHER.
Since then I have only had writer's block once and that was a spiritual attack, I later found out-maybe I will tell that story another time. I sometimes can even get four or five pages written in an hour. Granted I write them by hand first, but I still think that is pretty impressive.
So, what God has taught me through the years is that we commune with God in different ways. For many, it is through worship in music-not so much me (I rarely "feel" anything during worship). For some, it is through art. For me, it is through writing. Now God often speaks to me through music and sermons - which again is another post, sometime - but I still don't really "feel" anything during these times - nor when I am writing. I have learned, though, that we don't need to "feel" God for Him to be with us....In fact I would say the majority of our Christian lives we won't "feel" God. We simply listen for when he tells us something and then we act on it.
So, this was not the usual post that discusses some area of writing in the Christian realm or the secular realm, but it does pertain to the subject in the fact that God can speak to believers and give them "secular" writing or the such.