When Questioning Doesn't Stop

If you're like me, you're obsessed with questioning yourself. Two of the most repetitive questions I ask myself are: Is writing truly what God calls me to do? and, How much time and effort does God want me to put into it at this time in my life?

I was thinking about this the other day, wondering how to find answers to these questions when God clearly didn't have the desire to whisper His answers in my ear. I know this because these questions have been with me for years, and here I am still asking them of Him because I've yet to receive His divine responses.

But then a strange thing happened. This following phrase flowed through my mind with no hesitation and no internal editing either.

It's in the doing that the knowing comes.

When tapping into my internal editor and writing tight, my rewrite of this becomes:

It's in doing that knowing comes.

Anyone heard of this before? It's got to be from somewhere and my subconscious just retrieved it from its depth of hiding because it's way too brilliant to be original to me.

We cannot know if writing is for us if we do not write.

We cannot figure out how much time and effort God calls us to write without first allotting time and effort to it.

As we write, are we being fulfilled? Do we feel a sense of peace in the challenge?

Is balance in our lives? ie. Are we being pulled from writing to fulfill another honourable desire of our heart? If so, then it's time to listen to that inner pull. Don't quit, but rather cut back until balance is achieved, until that sense of peace returns.

It's in doing that knowing comes.

With prayer we can confidently stop worrying about whether or not writing is for us by simply doing it. If it's not for us there will be no fulfillment in the doing.

With prayer we can confidently discern how much time God wants us to devote to writing. If we're driven to do more and peace is present then we need to build on our time until we feel that pull. We'll feel the pull when family needs aren't met, or when our spiritual life is weakening, when peace fades. Adjust your writing accordingly. Rediscover fulfillment, balance, and peace.

Our time allotment for writing according to God's desire may well very from day to day, especially for those with young families, or crisis in their lives. But remember, just because He's saying no one day, it doesn't mean He's going to say no the next.

Pray, write, honestly discern on a daily basis using the peace meter, and you'll be writing to God's will every day of your life.

So, what's God calling of you today?


Surrendering to Him,

Eileen

Got the Call last week

No silly! Not one from an agent or editor. Are you crazy? I haven't even sent anything out yet.

No, this was an inner call that sent my writing in a new direction, no, actually, in an old direction. I still have about 15,000 words to go to finish my first draft of the story that's a Genesis finalist, so I'm in a bit of a quandary getting this call or tug or whatever you want to label it at this time. But what do you do?

An old story beckoned me to make another pass of revisions, and man, I'm finding myself falling in love with it all over again. Don't you just love it when your inners flutter and dance in anticipation of the scenes to come? And the neurons in your head churn and spin ways to make the current scene more active, conflict riddled, and tight. These are the experiences that verify that I followed the right call this past week.

But...

And there's always a but, right?

I'm investing a good chunk of savings to head to Denver in September to attend my first (and probably last, considering the expense) ACFW conference, and I need that Genesis finalist ms to be complete with at least one round of revisions under it so that I can take full advantage of being a finalist, and pitch that baby in hopes of receiving some partial requests. But the revisions to this other novel are taking more time than I expected, though they really are helping, so I must keep going. So I'm reaching out and asking for prayer.

If you can squeeze another item into your prayer agenda, I'd really appreciate your prayers regarding my fitting all this in while maintaining a relationship with my family. God is huge, and I know if I listen to His guidance He'll show me the way to accomplish all this within two months. But I'm a little deaf at times, so I'd appreciate you asking Him to shout when He's talking to me.

I'm praying that we all have a productive and eventful week ahead! Blessings to you all!


Surrendering to Him,

Eileen