Weekend Worship—The Hard Walk of Faith

For we walk by faith, not by sight. II Corinthians 5:7

As writers, we have chosen to follow a difficult path. I remember, after a particularly hard week, my husband remarked that he wished I’d chose another career, something simple—like becoming a movie star. 

His comparison was more appropriate than he realized. Success, for both career choices appears, from the outside at least, to rely on being popular with a lot of people. Reaching the top seems to come and go with the whims of an unknown audience. We struggle and strive for numbers—likes on our Facebook pages, followers on Twitter, and ultimately sales numbers. We seek to please our readers, our publishers, even other writers. 

We are word people, caged and captured by numbers.

But when we have chosen this path at God’s calling, our focus needs to be somewhere other than those who will read our words. Our audience is an audience of One, and it is to Him and Him alone that we owe our allegiance. He will dictate, with wisdom far beyond our own, who will read our words and the reach they will have. And I for one, am well pleased to leave my destiny in His capable hands. 

So today I encourage you to seek out the joy of your audience, because I know He is well pleased by your obedience to follow His call. Let Him lavish you with praise and protect you from worry. Leave the numbers to Him and concentrate only on the words.

Weekend Worship—The Freedom of Discipline

I press in toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Phil 3:14

Freedom and discipline may seem like opposite ends of the spectrum. But recently I’ve discovered, through experience, how related those two terms truly are. For those of you who follow my blog regularly you’ve noticed a common theme in my Weekend Worship—stress due to saying yes to often.

There are many reasons I tend to automatically say yes instead of no. 

Some of them may strike a nerve with you as well.

• I don’t want to disappoint someone.
• It feels good to be needed.
• I don’t want to be left out.
• I enjoy that particular task.
• I feel God has called me to do this. 

Some are good reasons to say yes, some aren’t. I put the reasons in this order on purpose—not because that’s a good order, but because it’s an honest one. All too often I put God’s calling last…not first. And I’ve found that doing things for the wrong reason enslaves my time and doesn’t leave me free to fulfill the call God has put on my life.

Over-indulgence is an exercise that leads to slavery—NEVER a demonstration of freedom.

So today I’m continuing my resolve to pray first, wait on God and PRESS ON to His goal for me—no matter the consequences.