writing

Rhyme and Reason

/ pastorpete51 / 4 Comments

When I was a little boy, my mother would often put her hands on her hips, sigh and say, “I just can’t make rhyme or reason out of this.” “This,” could mean, either her knitting project gone awry, my latest escapade of falling in the pond while catching frogs or the sorry state of my room. I remembered Mom’s saying recently when I stumbled upon this quote from Spurgeon.

“Articulate speech, which is denied to birds and beasts, is given to us for this major reason – that we may articulately and distinctly, praise and magnify the name of the Most High,” Charles Spurgeon

Now, Spurgeon was talking about our spoken words, but his thoughts also apply to our writing. If you write regularly, you probably could list a multitude of things that begin your inner avalanche of thoughts which landslide into a composition. I was challenged by Spurgeon’s thoughts about both the goal and form of our words. As writers, we often read tips on the “how’s” of writing. How to write dialogue, how to choose better adjectives, how to hook the reader at the beginning, and on and on. If we aren’t careful, we will soon become like a guide, who has learned how to survive in the wilderness, but has no idea of where he is going. The longest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 119, and I find it interesting how its writer pulls back the curtain on his motives for writing using the phrase, “I delight.” more than any other. Here are just four of them:

“I delight myself in your statutes…” Verse 16

“Your testimonies are my delight…” Verse 24

“And I will delight myself in Your commandments…” Verse 47

“…for Your law is my delight.” Verse 77

Just as Spurgeon challenged us to use words to magnify and praise God, the Psalmist shows us that he begins by delighting in the words that God has to say. Just as it was for the Psalmist, God’s statutes, testimonies, commandments, and law wait for us every day in the pages of the Bible. Unless I begin my day delighting in God’s words, then my own may be witty, or insightful, but they will only leave people dying of thirst in the wilderness. But when I have found my reason to write burst forth from delighting in God, then God delights in showing me the rhyme and reason of words that will lead others on the pathway to Him!

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Vulnerability as a Writer

/ pastorpete51 / 2 Comments 
Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. Matthew 23:3-4 NKJV

The main problem Jesus had with the Pharisees, was not about their teaching, but with their lives. Their doctrines were bullet-proof, unfortunately so were their hearts. As the writers and story tellers of their day their words demanded that others change their hearts without ever allowing anyone to have a peek into their own.

Yes, the Word of God is true and powerful, but part of the reason that we are touched by its power is that God inspired people – vulnerable people to pen its words. Paul tells us that He was the worst sinner, and a persecutor of Christians. John shares a private moment at the cross when Jesus asked him to take care of Mary, and Peter tells the story of being on the mountain when Jesus was transfigured. In the Psalms, David repents openly, loudly, and publicly, after his sordid affair with Bathsheba. Each of these writers left a mark on us, because we can identify with them, and are encouraged that if they could follow Jesus, then so could we.

So, I encourage you that the next time you open your laptop, or put pen to paper, stop and ask, “Am I revealing where I came from, am I writing about what I have personally learned, and am I willing to publicly confess my own sins and failures?” Being vulnerable is not just saying the right things, but it is being willing to reveal our joys, our failures and, our life’s stories and then, through our vulnerability God just may reach down and gently lift a burden that someone else is carrying.

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The Eye of the Artist

/ pastorpete51 / 10 Comments 
But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them.
Mark 2:7b NKJV

“It’s the eye of the artist, Bobby” my friend’s 91-year-old grandmother replied to his protestations. “That window you installed just isn’t straight.”

“But grandmom, I checked it with the level,” Bob replied

“Check it again,” she answered with a smile. Bob sighed, set his level back on the windowsill, and was shocked to see that grandmom had been right!

How a writer sees things, or in Jesus’s case, how He perceived them, will govern what is written. My step-dad, who was a commercial artist used to tell me, “You can’t paint what you think you see, you have to paint what you really see.” Picasso’s famous painting “Guernica” was far from the realism. Instead he utilized a style that was called “Cubism.” Guernica was a small town that suffered a devastating bombing during the 1937 civil war. Though his painting misses the details that the wartime photographs revealed, it was a perfect representation of how Picasso saw its horrors.

Every writer, for better or worse puts pen to paper and paints what they see with words. While artists from da Vinci to Andy Warhol have plied their trade with red, orange, yellow, and the rest of the rainbow, writers put on paper the shades of infinitives, participles, and adverbs. Every good novelist had learned how to structure thrilling plots, write flowing dialogues, and paint vivid pictures of their characters, but those of us calling ourselves Christian writers have the added duty to do more than entertain. God calls us to see what He sees. He gives us the awesome responsibility to share what He sees, especially in seemingly hopeless situations. He asks us to level the window that the world is looking through and to notice glimmers of hope in dark places.

Just as when Jesus saw in His spirit the hearts of the Pharisees, He gave words of forgiveness for a paralyzed man, we can point to God’s grace in failure, refreshing for exhausted neighbors, laughter, and joyful stories in frustrating times. God calls us to paint more than we think we see, and even more than we truly see. He hands us a torch and asks us to shine His light on the paths of others to show the hope that He, the Master Artist, has helped us see today!