This weekend I’m attending a conference for Christian writers. Conferences are always overwhelming with all the info dumping, feelings, and planning. It makes me want to write everything NOW, except it’s also taking all my time and energy. Oops!
I wanted to hop on here to process a talk I watched this morning–“Filling the Well: A Writer’s Devotional Life” by Chris Fabry. It hit my heart. I sometimes feel like I’m reeling from the trickiness of the publishing industry and how it feels like a business more than a community of writers. Why is it about how high I jump, how well I fit certain boxes, rather than how beautifully I can say something true?
This isn’t what I wanted.
But in the talk this morning, I remembered that the humanness of the industry does not restrict the divinity of God. Fabry spoke about how our desire for validation as a writer, as a professional, will never end, but it is our devotional life, where we place knowing God as our highest priority, that satisfies that desire.
The industry wants me to jump, to reach, to perform, but God wants me to lower myself, to humble myself, to get out of the way, so He can lift me up, honor me, and work through me. As Fabry says, water always fills the lowest places, and so does God.
“A devotional life will enable you to let go of expectations and outcomes. If you are connected with God, and things don’t work out the way you planned, you’re going to be okay with it because you’re not trusting in your abilities–you’re trusting in Him.”
Chris Fabry
Such freedom. I feel a lightness as I write this, a lightness that I never feel when I’m thinking about hustling, producing, succeeding, proving myself. I am not an efficiency-first robot–I’m a human being that God longs to commune with. My writing is merely another avenue in which to know Him more and to love Him more.
Lord, I want this life! I want to create with You as You lead, in and through me, for Your glory out of the magnitude of Your everlasting grace. From You were all things, and to You are all things; remember me at the bottom of the well. I love You. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Michelle E. Chin 