Ghostwriter

I believe the Bible is the inerrant, complete Word of God. But I wonder about the Director’s Cut.

For example, there’s Genesis 12:1-3:

The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

And then there’s the white space before Verse 4 where we’re left to imagine the follow-up conversation:

Abram: So basically, I’m moving.

God: Yes.

A: Without a garage sale first?

G: Correct.

A: And you’re going to bless me, make my name great, and make me into a great nation to bless everyone else.

G: That’s right.

A: And my job in this is to …

G: Start walking.

We talk about God’s “call” for our lives in dramatic overtones, and certainly what God promises to do with our work is pretty outstanding. In Abraham’s case the ROI is greatness on all the levels, and so it’s easy for us to miss his role in it all.

Packing, moving, walking (camel riding?).

I’m a job collector – one year I had more jobs than the tax form allots – but writing is my first job others have shown a collective interest in. Thanks to last week’s release of Lu, we can now talk about the product, but I’m still at a loss when people would ask what it’s like to be a writer.

“Well, let’s see. I sit down, open my computer, type until the boys wake up, and then I close the computer.”

Sure there’s some other things happening there, but at its basest form, writing a book is about sitting and writing for as long as I could handle it. Some days, that looked like 30 minutes and others 3 hours (but rarely more. I’m not a writing Olympian over here). Some days it looked like a paragraph and others a few thousand words. But it always looked like a mystery.

I’d never written a story, and writing Lu, especially in the early days, looked like a lot of mundane, day-in, day-out sitting and writing before I ever saw anything resembling a character, let alone a plot. And even when something did take shape, that didn’t bar the scariness of the next page. Where does Lu need to go now? How am I going to get her there?

And that’s when God would step in, reminding me of our division of labor.

My job: Sit & Write

His job: The Story

And sure as God called me to write this story, God saw it done. Writing for me was an intensely active conversation with him that moved this verse from I Thessalonians 5:24 from a head space to an experiential understanding:

He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

I don’t know what God has called you to, but I know it’s scary because what God will do with it is beyond you. The trick, girls, is this: Say yes to the call instead of the promise. Don’t say, “Yes Lord, make me great!” but “Yes Lord, I’ll pack, move, and walk. I’ll sit and write.” You do this in faith that God is faithful. That as you do your part, God will surely do his. But you’ll never know the work He’ll do without getting to work yourself.

Do you need this verse today? Do you know someone else who does? Groovy, because I’ve got this hand-painted, wooden sign from Sam Reineke, the founder and artist behind PlaceinProgress, to give to you + two signed copies of Lu.

Just post a comment to enter to win. Drawing closes this Sunday, July 9, 11:59PM EST, and I’ll announce the winner back here on Monday morning!