Corrie ten Boom said, “If God has called you, do not spend time looking over your shoulder to see who is following you.” And she is someone whose advice I respect.
So why do we blog? Why do we write? As Christian writers, we say it’s to tell people about the Lord Jesus Christ and His love. But we must be careful that our ultimate desire is to follow Him, not to be followed. He will guide us by His Word.
“Your word is a lamp for my feet,
a light on my path.” Psalms 119:105 NIV
This is especially true for those of us who want people to follow our blog, FaceBook, or Instagram. Although we are encouraged when readers decide to follow us, that cannot be our guiding force.
What good would it be if millions followed our blog, but God wasn’t using it to speak to any of them? It would be better, by far, to reach a handful of people that God was using us to encourage and bring hope.
“Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” –Francis Chan
Acts 20:20 states that Paul taught “from house to house”. And in verse 24, he says, “In every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.”
The Apostle Paul risked his life to teach from house to house. I was struck by the fact that he did not consider himself too important to reach out to a small number of people.
As we fix our eyes on Jesus and follow Him, He will accomplish His purpose in our lives and in our writing.
Should we develop our skills and study our craft in order to be the best writer we can be? Absolutely! The Bible says, Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord … It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Colossians 3:23-24 NIV
I am convinced that the more closely I follow Him, the more He will use me. We must not despise the day of small beginnings. (Zechariah 4:10) If only one person is encouraged by what you wrote, God has used you! God cares about individual people.
Jesus said, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off.“ Matthew 18:10-14
Nothing thrills me more than for a reader to tell me, “I needed this!” or “This spoke to me.” Then I know that God has used me.
May we always follow Him with our whole heart and pray that He will use us to accomplish His purposes in our writing.
With Love,
This is My Journey Unscripted.
Click this link to learn more about Jesus: Who Is Jesus?
¹Corrie ten Boom is the author of The Hiding Place.
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