Bigger than Blogging

Confession: I have not blogged in two and a half weeks.

(Which, if you're a regular reader of my blog, isn't a confession at all.)

I could cite many reasons for my absence—busyness, indecision, a two-day stint in the hospital—but in truth, only one matters.

I wasn’t supposed to.

A Writer's To-Do List
Image Courtesy of kanate / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Now before I launch into this explanation, let me say I know how it works. I know blogging is one of the major activities distinguishing writers from everyone else on social media, that it is key in establishing a personal, professional brand and an online presence. It improves your writing by demanding frequency and variety and teaches discipline as nothing else quite does.

Yet I have not done so in the last 18 days, drafted only one possible entry two weeks ago and that one right poorly.

So why am I yet encouraged, excited, and proud of my inactivity?

Because in not blogging I was doing what I was supposed to do.

Now if you don't have an intimate, active relationship with God in which you engage and commune with Him regularly, this decision might seem a little hinky…and that's a polite word for it. Moreover with all the important things going on with my health, children, and finances, why would God care about how often I blog, let alone care enough to instruct me not to?

Well, for the same reason He does anything.

He wants me to trust Him more than I trust myself, to rely on his guidance and timing rather than lean to my own understanding. He wants me to know His plans for me are good and not evil to prosper me and bring me an end He already has in mind and demonstrate that knowledge with my actions.

In short, He wants me to know He’s bigger than my blogging.

Understand that I am not advocating a sloppy, ignorant approach to building a career or confusing a God-given directive with laziness. I am a writer, therefore I must write, read, blog, and work on my brand. I read the Bible and James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure. I pray and practice my writing craft through Twilight fanfiction. I write when I’m tired, cranky, or feeling so devoid of talent I wonder why I bother.

And those are smart, necessary decisions.

The right place at the right time.
(Image Courtesy of pakorn /FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

But when I sense that God wants me to rest despite conventional wisdom saying “work,” my trust in Him will prompt me to rest. Because no matter how much I blog, how many books I read or drafts I produce, if I’m not operating in His will, then I am wasting my time.

These past few weeks have been mind-blowing, revelatory in a way I struggle to articulate. While I have not been writing, I have been listening, thinking, and growing because God was speaking. He speaks constantly, yes, but there is unique power and precision involved when He is speaking through a season of reduced activity. He spoke into several areas of my life with specificity and chastised with compassion.

Some of these divine lessons I plan to share; others are private. But no matter what I share or say, I am confident that I am in the right place at the right time. And for me, that place and time must be wherever God leads, even if He leads me into a stretch of silence.