ShareSomething happened to me this week, something entirely unexpected.
Everything I have hoped for in the past few years of writing just happened. A big publisher didn’t knock on my door with one of those gigantic checks, like I had just won millions in the Publisher’s Clearing House. It was a series of little things, things you all wouldn’t even notice if I didn’t tell you about them.
I had a chance to write for Relevant magazine. I never thought I’d be cool enough for them. They made me feel insecure, like a seventh grader standing at the front of the cafeteria looking for a seat. But I made a connection through my writer’s group and my friend grabbed a blog post I wrote a few months back and posted it, and my little post did pretty darn well. And they asked me for another one this week.
I love the Catalyst conference. And last week the Catalyst blog people, a leadership blog I respect and enjoy, asked me for a post too.
I spent time on a marketing call with Tyndale, with women I have truly come to love, and we talked about getting the word out on the She’s Got Issues DVD curriculum.
I received a copy of the Everyday Matters Bible in the mail, the bible I wrote devotionals for, and I was thrilled.
When I stop for a minute and take that in, I’m astounded. It’s every little signpost that I asked God for, every clue from him that even though there are so many out there trying to write, even though it’s a market that seems glutted with the kinds of things I like to write about, I should still do it.
Yesterday at church someone gave me some encouraging words that absolutely lifted my spirit. I don’t know about you, but I tend to underestimate what I do. I tend to think that life is just ordinary, and I do my part, but it’s a bit more “spitting into the wind’ (see Ecclesiastes) than it is living out some grand call by the God of the Universe himself.
But if, if there’s even a chance that it is truly important, if there’s even a hint of possibility that God cares deeply about what we spend our time doing–
then I want to do it right.
So this week I’m working on those articles, and shaping up a book concept for book #2. I might get a little quiet here for a few weeks. But that’s because I want to take my work seriously. I want to invest my whole heart in this, which takes a lot of space and time and prayer. And oh, it’s summer, and my kids are here, and we have Monopoly games to play and sno-cones to make and let’s be real, I’ve got chores to force my children to do and fights to break up.
So I pray for you, and for me, that this summer holds a bit of solitude and reflection. I pray that you might believe that despite God’s bigness, he is also quite interested in your daily life. And I pray Ephesians 3 for you this morning. This God that we seek is so loving and so powerful. He wants us to experience the abundance of his love for us, and then he goes even beyond that, beyond measure:
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could even ask for or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory through the church and through Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen!
This is what makes life worth it. This is the promise of our Creator God. I want to live a life worthy of this level of promise, in every little thing that makes up my day. I challenge you this week to pray this prayer, and to start your morning expecting to see God’s evidence in your life. Maybe, like me, you’ll be utterly surprised and delighted when he makes himself known, in unexpected ways and places.
