The Bottom Line, Ministries Christian News, Articles, & Poetry When I got saved four years ago, God implanted a whole new set of dreams and aspirations within me, and charted a new course for my life. While I always loved to write, I never once pictured myself writing Christian fiction or non-fiction material. I also never imagined I would someday attempt to make and share my own style of music. Apparently, God had these gifts planned for my life, from the start. Isn’t that just like Him though? Only He can reroute your life into doing something you never planned for, all for the sake of His glory.
Every night, I send out a new flurry of Twitter blasts, Facebook and CollectiveFaith posts, Jango Internet Radio fan emails and SoundCloud messages, constantly spreading my music around. And I try to write for different blogs at least twice a week. It gets a bit tiresome at times. My music doesn’t receive a lot of chatter. My blog posts sometimes go a week without any comments or “likes”. In my humanity, I tend to grow weary and question, “Why exactly am I doing this stuff?”
But my wife is always there to remind me that God gave me gifts; not for my own edification, but for His glorification. Sometimes, I’ll catch my 8-year old son playing with toys and singing lyrics to my songs. It strengthens me to see him learning to praise God through music. If he’s the only person the music drives toward God, then all the time and efforts are worth it. There are times when a blog post has been written and forgotten about. But out of nowhere comes a random email explaining how said blog post touched someone’s heart in a very specific way. These are the rare moments that strengthen my resolve to keep writing for the Lord. He’s using my talents, the very talents given by Him, to minister to folks at just the right moments.
1 Peter 4:10 says, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace:”.
So, I write. Sometimes, I write Christian fiction; sometimes song lyrics. Other times I may write a witty short story, or an article in answer to a question. And in between all of that writing, I produce instrumentals in hopes of someday penning Christian lyrics to flow over them. These are my living dreams. My family supports my efforts. In time, maybe the world will catch on to what I have to offer. But if the world never recognizes my talents, I know that I’m making my wife, my kids and our Lord Jesus very happy by staying the course.
Excellent words! Keep using your gifts for God, and when you least expect it the next opportunity will come.
I relate to what you wrote where my writing is concerned. My opportunity to write for thebottomline was a “suddenly.”
Thanks for sharing.
Ennis, Great words, Bro. I needed the encouragement as well. Puts me in mind of Peter who fished all night an caught nothing but at the Lord’s directive, he caught a boatload in a moment of time. Keep on keeping on.
God’s word will always accomplish something in someone’s life. I never dreamed when I began posting articles on faithwriters four years ago that today God would use my writing around the world, with comments from people on five continents, including one decision for Christ by a college student on the Island of Figi. Me too, getting on at the bottomline happened so fast. Keep on writing. God is using your music and writing in ways you don’t even know, and it could be in the life of someone on the other side of the world.
Oh, how I can relate Ennis. I write because God called me, but at times I wonder is it making a difference? Then, The Lord reminds me that if just one is helped or receives hope than my writing is worth it. We really don’t know how many people we are impacting, a lot of times people read our blogs and articles and they don’t comment. We really don’t have an accurate number of the people we help, but numbers are not the important factor here, being obedient to what God has called us to do is what is most important.