A Change

Recently, I listened to a presentation by Dr. Piper – http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/conference-messages/the-pastor-as-scholar-a-personal-journey – in which he said that he wrote as a means of collecting and organizing his thoughts – that his writing was not just the result of his thinking but integral to it. I liked that, and it resonated with how it works for me.

 

Then I read Eugene Petersen's memoirs in a book titled, “The Pastor.” In it, he refers to another writer who likened writing to walking through dark woods with a flashlight in his mouth, illuminating the next two feet. (I would give you the writer and the page number, but I have lent the book out to a friend.) I really liked that. Writing as exploring. Writing without knowing where it is going to end. Writing for the sake of writing.

 

I have previously struggled with some tension. Sometimes writing in the “now,” with little thought for tomorrow, but more often feeling a sense of responsibility to keep my thoughts to myself until they have been refined, tested, and made a little safer. Perhaps it is important for people to know when my thoughts are the product of thorough Biblical contemplation and a long season of careful refining. I have done much of that, and am delighted to share it.

 

But that is not all I want to share...

 

Perhaps, it is not even sharing that drives me to write, but the desire to put words to thoughts that seem somehow homeless until they have found their place on a page in a story that is my journey.

 

And so after another short season of not writing, I embark again. This time I expect the journey will be a little more free, and a lot more raw! I suppose we will see.

Comments

[Randy Smart]

I enjoy putting words together to try and explore and explain things that I am thinking through and things I hope can be helpful to others. Occasionally I have thought it would be wonderful to be able to "write" full time - without the pressures of other responsibilities. But I have realized as the years go by that writing from the vantage point of present understanding ONLY comes through the crucible of other responsibilities and past experiences.