From Edie: Start your writing year with purpose by focusing on what God has already placed in your hands. This encouragement for Christian writers will help you embrace calling, obedience, and renewal without reinventing yourself.
What’s in Your Hands? A Message for Christian Writers About Calling, Obedience, and Renewal
By Kennita (Kay) Williams
At the start of a new year, the pressure to reinvent ourselves can be overwhelming especially for writers, speakers, and Christian communicators. New goals. New platforms. New strategies. New versions of ourselves.
But what if God is not asking us for something new at all?
What if the real invitation is not reinvention, but renewal?
During a recent Bible study, one question anchored our entire conversation:
It is the same question God asked Moses in Exodus 4:2. Moses was standing at the edge of his calling, wrestling with insecurity, fear, and self-doubt. He wanted reassurance. He wanted more clarity. He wanted to feel ready.
Instead of giving Moses something new, God asked him to look at what he already carried.
“What is that in your hand?”
It was a staff… ordinary, familiar, and easy to overlook. Yet it became the very instrument God used to demonstrate His power.
For many of us, the tension is not that we lack calling or gifting. The tension is that we keep overlooking what God has already placed in our hands.
Renewal Over Reinvention
We live in a culture that celebrates the “New Year, New Me” mindset. But Scripture invites us into something deeper and far more sustaining.
Romans 12:2 does not call us to replace our identity it calls us to renew our minds.
Transformation does not come from becoming someone else. It comes from seeing what God has already entrusted to us through a renewed lens.
As writers and communicators, it is easy to assume that the next level requires:
- A bigger platform
- A new message
- More validation
- Or a different version of ourselves
But often, God is saying, “Return.”
In Revelation 2:4–5, Jesus lovingly corrects the church, not for a lack of effort, but for misplaced focus: “Return to your first love.”
Sometimes going higher is not about adding something new.
It is about restoring what mattered first.
Consecration Before Elevation
In 2 Chronicles 29:15, we see leaders preparing to restore the house of the Lord. But before any external work begins, Scripture tells us they consecrated themselves.
Clarity did not start with action.
It started with alignment.
For communicators, this is a vital reminder. Before we publish, pitch, post, or perform we must pause. We must examine our motives, our pace, and our posture before God.
Self-inspection is not condemnation; it is preparation.
Lamentations 3:40 says, “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.”
Sometimes the most faithful step forward begins with an honest look inward.
Faithfulness With What’s Familiar
One of the greatest barriers to movement is the belief that what we have is not enough.
But Scripture consistently tells a different story.
God did not ask Moses for something impressive.
He asked him to steward what was already in his hands.
For writers, that may look like:
- The manuscript you keep revising but never submit
- The message you have lived but have not shared
- The blog you stopped writing because it felt too small
- The voice you have silenced because it feels familiar
Small does not mean insignificant.
Familiar does not mean unusable.
Luke 16:10 reminds us that faithfulness with little precedes faithfulness with much. God often activates what we already carry not what we are waiting to receive.
Movement Meets God
Clarity without action becomes information.
But clarity paired with obedience leads to transformation.
James 1:22 urges us not to merely hear the Word, but to do what it says. God honors movement, however imperfect when it is rooted in obedience.
We do not need the full plan to take the next step.
We only need to move with what is already in our hands.
The truth is this:
You are not waiting on God.
God is waiting on your obedience.
As writers and communicators, our calling is not activated by waiting until we feel ready. It is activated when we steward what God has already entrusted to us with faith, humility, and courage.
So, as this year unfolds, resist the pressure to reinvent yourself.
Instead, pause.
Renew your mind.
Restore your focus.
And ask the question that unlocks movement:
What is in your hands?
Then work it.
TWEETABLE
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