Timely Reading, Timeless Writing by Bob Jones

When writing starts where people live - their questions, struggles, and concerns - and

then offers a timely and helpful word from the Scriptures, people are more

interested in hearing what else the Scriptures have to say.

Have you ever read someone’s story and thought, “That’s exactly what I needed to read”? Your writing will do that for someone else. Affirmation for what we write is like gold, but it’s the comments about how timely the content is for a reader that inspire us the most.

“This was exactly what I needed to hear to start my day! Thank you!”

“This is definitely what I needed to read today… absorb it and now live it.”

“Just what I needed to hear this morning to strengthen me and know beyond any doubt that God has me.”

“You don’t know how much I needed to read that today.”

 

Timing is Everything

Timely words - the right words at the right time - are a gift from God. Inspired words can be most inspiring when truth meets need. 

 

Amy Rees Anderson is an author and a highly sought after keynote speaker and a frequent lecturer on college campuses. She posted this prayer on her blog on June 13^th with the comment: Hopefully one of you reading this will find this poem to have exactly the words you needed to hear at exactly the time you needed to hear it too.

The Knot Prayer

 

Dear God:
Please untie the knots
that are in my mind,
my heart and my life.

Remove the have nots,
the can nots and the do nots
that I have in my mind.

 

Erase the will nots,
may nots,
might nots that may find
a home in my heart.

 

Release me from the could nots,
would nots and
should nots that obstruct my life.

 

And most of all,

Dear God,
I ask that you remove from my mind,
my heart and my life all of the ‘am nots’
that I have allowed to hold me back,
especially the thought
that I am not good enough.

AMEN

-unknown

 

The beauty of a book or blog or archived content on the web is that people can access it from anywhere, at any time. Timeless words can become timely. The comment below resulted from the reader encountering content I published three years previous.

 

“I accidentally came across this article. It touches me deeply. I wanted to keep myself isolated from anyone and anything that could hurt me. I now realize I was afraid, holding myself in a mental prison because I wanted to be the peacemaker and it was taking my peace of mind. Keeping up the expectations of everyone else. I am learning how much He loves and cares for me regardless of my situation.” 

I look for comments right after I post content, especially on the Inscribe Writers blog. How about you? Are you ever discouraged by a lack of immediate response from your invitation to connect or comment? I hope this post will encourage you that your writing is timely and can have a timeless effect for good.

 

Timely Conversations

Timeliness is not only about people engaging writing, but writers engaging people in random conversations. As you seek God for inspiration, pay attention for God’s direction.

Julia Cameron, famous for her book, The Artist’s Way, and for the practice of Morning Pages, says,

“When we seek daily spiritual guidance, we are guided toward the next step forward for our art. Sometimes the step is very small. Sometimes the step is, "Wait. Not now." Sometimes the step is, "Work on something else for a while." When we are open to Divine Guidance, we will receive it. It will come to us as timely conversations with others.”

What content have you written that was inspired by a timely conversation? What might you encounter today that would be the creative breakthrough you are praying for?

Do you feel God’s nudge to write something today that the Spirit can use in a timely manner? What are you waiting for?

 

Thank you for reading. And commenting. 

Bob and his wife Jocelyn are both Reverends and write at www.REVwords.com

T is for Time, by Susan Barclay

 

There's a certain amount of irony in choosing time as my theme for this month's post. Time got away from me and I am writing this on the day of deadline. There are two reasons, I think, that time's passage escaped me: 1) I had rescheduled my July post to the 25th because I missed that deadline; 2) my husband and I were at a cottage last week and found that time passed much more slowly there. Can it really already be August the 6th today?!

As I think about time, a number of quotes come to mind. Are you familiar with any of these?

"I wasted time and now doth time waste me." ~William Shakespeare

"Where your attention goes, your time goes." Idowu Koyenikan

"Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves." ~Lord Chesterfield

"Time is the single most important resource we have. Every single minute we lose is never coming back." ~Taran Sharma

 Now, how about this one?

"...teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom." (Psalm 90:12)

As I watch my mom struggle in her final years (months? days?), I'm reminded of the importance of using well the time God has graciously given each one of us. While most of us will leave this planet with unfinished work, projects, and plans; unrealized hopes and dreams, while we are here, we ought to make the most of the time we have. Though there is a place for downtime, rest, and relaxation, and I'm not suggesting we burn ourselves out with activity (even meaningful, worthwhile activity), how many of us are skilled at managing ourselves well? How many of us fritter away our time on pointless things?

"There is no such thing as time-management; there is only self-management." ~Rory Vaden

"...each of us will give a personal account to God" (Romans 14:12). I don't know about you, but I want to hear those words referenced in Matthew 25:21, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

God has given us gifts, including the gift of writing, and not to use them is a waste of the gift of time - don't you agree? 

Therefore, let's put legs to this quote from author Stephen King:

Amateurs wait for inspiration while the rest of us just get up and go to work.

And "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving" (Colossians 3:23-24).

Write on, my friends!

________________________

For more about Susan Barclay and her writing, please visit www.susan-barclay.blogspot.com. 

 

T is for Tired ~ by Brenda J. Wood

 Ain’t You Tired, Ms. Hilly?

In the movie, The Help, Ms. Hilly spent all her time trying to control her world and the people in it. You might say she was building her platform.

I’m all for building platform, proclaiming our names and selling our books, but there is a limit.

A constant stream of messages tout this expert or that and each of them apparently knows more about platform, (or may I say staging) than we do. By the way, do you know the definition of the word expert? An expert is a drip, under pressure! I know this to be true, because occasionally, even I am flaunted as an expert!

I tried to keep up with all the advice, but there is just too much of it. Much of it is contradictory. Like Ms. Hilly, I just got tired. Now I’m not calling these folks and their info unworthy, but I am saying that too much following and not enough doing will be our undoing. We would be wise to heed the 4-H motto, learn to do by doing.

You see, for a while, I lost my focus as a Christian writer. I spent all my time chasing the dream, building my platform with methods offered in the barrage of blogs and emails, but I spent very little of my time actually being a Christian who writes. Finally, I began to pray like Jabez. 

I copied the prayer, placed it on my bathroom mirror and I prayed it every day. I did not alter it to build my platform. That would have sounded something like this.

Brenda cried to the God of Israel, saying -

1. Oh, that You would bless me – with a huge blog following

2. And enlarge my border, - so that I can sell more books

3. And that Your hand might be with me, and guide my writing success

4. And You would keep me from the evil - of not having a platform

5. So that it might not hurt me! - and I would be a best-selling author forever

And God granted Brenda’s request. (1 Chronicles 4:10, AMP)

No, I did not pray like that. I prayed the original, just as it was written.

Jabez cried to the God of Israel, saying-

6. Oh, that You would bless me 

7. And enlarge my border,

8. And that Your hand might be with me, 

9. And You would keep me from evil 

10. So that it might not hurt me!

And God granted his request. (1 Chronicles 4:10, AMP)

God did not answer immediately, because he had to wait for me to do my part: write. When He did answer, he took care of my platform. We were in harmony once more and I could once more say it and mean it. I am a Christian writer, that is, a Christian who writes.

Brenda J. Wood has authored more than fifty books. She is a seasoned motivational speaker, who declares the Word of God with wisdom, humour, and common sense.

T is for Tell ~ by Wendy L. Macdonald

 

Tears trickled down my face as I turned the pages of a picture book. It was a favorite of mine that I read to my children during our homeschooling years. Days earlier, when I discovered our former home in the country was back on the market, this book came to mind.

Like our old home, the country home in the book had plum trees planted out front. But unlike the characters in the book, we didn’t stay at our old place long enough to witness tree trunks thicken to a ripe old age. 

Sometimes a family must uproot before the local weeds choke out all the good cultivated within young hearts.

While our move did ward off one batch of tenacious bindweed, other wild things moved into our new garden and changed the landscape, bringing that mama to her knees again. The heart is a field that must be tended with care. Daily and deliberately. If the Master Gardener isn’t invited to help, all manner of mischief germinates. 

Thankfully, good soil can still produce goodness while weeds compete for light, water, and nutrients. All is not lost. God foresaw the dangers lurking ahead and prepared one mama for predawn weeding via prayers. The harvest will tell which plants won. Because when we tell God our hearts’ burdens, He doesn’t bury our tears under a neglected to-do-pile. He takes on our desires as if He sowed them in the first place. Because He did. 

Writers who tell their personal stories know that’s one powerful way of winning readers. Story trumps an info dump any day. Readers want to see the tears, bent knees, and hands lifted in trusting worship of the God who cares. When we trust the readers enough to be vulnerable with them, they’ll trust our words and read to the end of the story. Telling our stories makes writers and readers feel seen, heard, and less alone.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, (Ephesians 3:20 NIV)

Wendy L. Macdonald is an inspirational blogger and YouTuber who loves to photograph nature on Vancouver Island. Her happy place is making junk journals to sell in her Etsy shop. Her byline is: “My faith is not shallow because I’ve been rescued from the deep.”