finish it

Battered thoughts, thoughts of discouragement and thoughts of hopelessness, we feel depleted and defeated, and it seems as if God has fallen silent He feels distant and we feel like we are falling away, backsliding in our faith.

The voices taunts us they tell us that this is all there is and there is no more because God is holding out on us.  The voices remind us of the sin we spoke yesterday and the sin we committed 10 years ago and they remind us that we are unworthy because we are not perfect.

Philippians 3:12-13
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do:  Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.

As believers we know times like these will come, they are pretty much unavoidable, and the first time it happens the voices overwhelm us and the questions begin to rattle through our brains. 

Are we really saved?

Is God really for real?

Where is He?

What does God want from me?

Poppa don’t you love me anymore?

The voices and thoughts sneak up on us and shout at us  and we are defenseless to defeat them in our own strength.  

Whenever we take a step towards Jesus, the enemy will take a step in front of us to block our way.  The voices and thoughts will come but it up to us whether we let them stay.  We have a protector and a defender and His name is Jesus and if we reach our hand out for Him He will reach back, and the enemy flees because he can’t stay anywhere where the name of Jesus is spoken, he can’t stay anywhere where Jesus is worshipped.

Back in November I wrote this post, and after I put the last period on the last sentence I knew it wasn’t over I knew there was a deeper story hidden in between the lines wanting to be let out, and I say that with confidence because I had very little to do with writing that post, it pretty much wrote itself, and I thought someone should really finish writing the story.

You, came the words pressed upon my heart, I want YOU to finish writing it.

cricket cricket cricket

aaaand more crickets

Finish writing it.  The words were not shouting but rather whispering just simple quiet words pressed gently into my heart.

Finish writing the story

Oh c’mooon!!

Writer was never on my short list of career options, and writing a piece of fiction was NEVER in my thought process of possibilities.

Real writers are people… who well …..actually write

Writers are people who do what the experts say to do to become authentically real writers, and I am none of those things.

I have never been to a writer’s conference and I am not feeling the nudge to go anytime soon

I am not social media savvy.  I deactivated my facebook account several months ago and have no desire to reactivate it anytime soon.

I have never been on Twitter and don’t plan to anytime soon.

I have a handful of followers and my blog posts do not garner comments high in the double digit numbers.

I have no subscribers.

I did not buy my domain name but rather use blogger because it is free.

There are people who actually want to do that sort of thing…I am not one of them.

There are blogs way more popular than mine, they have hundreds of followers and their posts command an equal number of comments they are the logical choice to write the story, not me.

Philippians 2:13 tells us that it is for God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. 

I stepped back from writing this blog to give myself more time to finish writing the story, but I didn't do it quietly but rather I went kicking and screaming, but the morning I said yes to God I was sitting in my car during rush hour traffic and the sky lit up with crosses written in the clouds… and the smoke from the airplane fuel and I felt peace wash over me and I knew that is what I supposed to do.

And then the condemning voices came.  I would sit in front of a blank computer screen becoming best buddies with a little button called delete, I listened to the voices laughing me, ridiculing me, telling me I was kidding myself, the voices of defeat and discouragement, telling me I am inadequate, not worthy, not good enough, reminding me of everything I am not.

When the enemy is bothering us it means we are bothering him, we are corrupting his effectiveness, because if we weren’t he would not be so intent on trying to take us down.

Matthew 7:7-8

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks and the door will be opened.

Day after day I would sit at my desk with my head cupped in my hands wondering what in the world I got myself into, did I make a mistake?  Did I hear Him wrong?  Repeating the same prayer over and over.

Dear Heavenly Father, please guide my thoughts and put the words on my heart that you want me to write, I can’t do this without You Father, I just can't.

When I wrote the post Heart Song, I had no idea that I was writing it as much for myself as I was for anyone who has a song inside of them knocking them around struggling and fighting to get out but instead letting the voices keep their song locked away inside.

The tugging came a quiet gentle familiar tug of the voice of my Heavenly Father.

Write the story for Me. 

I finally got the first 1,000 words on the page without deleting them and I felt peace that the words I had written were the words I was supposed to write.

So I am writing the story with no expectations, I am writing it for the pure joy and peace I feel when I write, I am writing it for the audience of my heavenly Father because He told me too, and the voices don’t carry weight anymore.  I don’t have to care if anyone will ever read it or even like it, I don’t have to worry about what I am going to do with it or what will become of it, I am doing it on the Father’s instructions, for the pleasure of Him, to honor and glorify Him and all that He has done in my life.

1 Corinthians 10:31

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God-even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many so that they may be saved.

What are the voices discouraging you from finishing? from starting? from doing?

Proverbs 3:6

in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight.