Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: The Writer's Challenge (NOT the FaithWriters Challenge) (06/10/10)
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TITLE: On Being The Pencil | Previous Challenge Entry
By Hilary Beebe
06/16/10 -
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I stumble out to the kitchen, nearly tripping over my collie dog who is undoubtedly dreaming of open fields of wildflowers, or perhaps more accurately of hot dogs and cheese sticks stolen from the unsuspecting hands of my toddler children. I fumble with the Blackberry's dismiss button, finally silencing it. Someone very clever started putting the device in the kitchen at night, instead of the bedroom, knowing full well that the walk to the chirp in the morning would wake the somnolent better than the brew starting automatically in Mr. Coffee. It is morning again - a new day, full of chances to either nail it or blow it, and if you're like me, the desire to do it all to His Glory. Without the aforementioned Him, this is a daunting enough task to send even the bravest of leaders crawling quickly back to bed.
He, I think, with a smile and a yawn, is why I'm up so early, and so gladly. I tell Him good morning, that I love Him, that I am thankful for the day. Then I pour my feeble self a cup of coffee and find a comfortable place to fellowship with Him through the pen, paper and words written in the holiest of books alive, indeed, the only book that is actually alive.
As a person who communicates best through written word, I pause to think about His Word as I read its newness, its vitality seeping through each word and phrase more powerfully than any sunrise seeps through my bedroom window. What is it about the words of God that make them live? What makes this text sacred, everlasting, the most historic document in the history of mankind, and the most revered and loved? I know the facts, but this morning I'm after the feeling.
The challenge of the successful written communicator is two-sided coin. Heads is to pass on the facts, to teach, to help someone know something. Much of the bible is history passed on from generation to generation. It is the grandest of textbooks, the first and last textbook. I've read enough textbooks in school, though, to know that knowledge alone makes for really dry reading. You just don't love a textbook.
Flick the coin off your thumb, however, and guess what tails is? To convey emotion; to turn the single dimension of a written word into the multiple dimensions of sensing, feeling, perceiving and finally, understanding. There are parts of the Holy Scriptures that can be dry as advanced physics, that seem to convey no emotion to the reader, unless you know the source of the scriptures, and then each word penned is like a tête-à-tête with your Beloved. What is it about The Word that brings out such strong emotion in me? It is not the words themselves, but the very Spirit of the One who wrote them, for where the Spirit is, there is life!
This morning I am awed by the realization that the Spirit who wrote the scriptures is the Spirit who makes His home inside of me. Does that mean His words are inside of me as well? As a writer who sometimes struggles for what to say, the idea that the Maker of All Things Said and Unsaid is the reason I am alive this morning is almost more than I can bear.
I wrap my blanket around my shoulders, wrap my hands around my coffee cup, and wrap my mind around this startling concept. The Writer resides within. I might be “a writer” but He is The Writer, and desiring to be an instrument of His makes me not the mind behind the pencil, but the pencil itself.
The real challenge of the writer is not to write what you know, but to write what you don't know. Who can fathom the thoughts and emotions of God? I cannot. But I hear Him challenging me to be the vessel through which He can flow to His children and to the world beyond. How will they see Him? How will they know? My challenge... to write that they may know.
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