Hosanna Emily's Blog

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Dear Blogger | Give Your Blog to God

Dear Blogger,
Each of us embarked on our blogging adventures for a reason. I don't know what yours was. Were you wanting to change the world and give hope to the hopeless? Did you want to make new friends while sharing your heart in words? Or was this a simple idea that began to grow into something beyond your imagination?
If you're like me, you can look back on your early days of blogging and shake your head. Young me knew so little. I could have never imagined where I would be 2 1/2 years later. God used this blog to change me so much.
I learned, I changed, I grew. But I also sighed, grew discouraged, and wanted to give up.
I'm getting off track here. This letter is for you, dear blogger. So, if you have a place on the internet you see as home, here's what's on my heart. I want to share two things - a challenge and encouragement.

The Challenge
This has always been my biggest struggle with blogging:
me.
Yes, me. I started off my blog for Jesus. It was to spread His story of love to the world. More specifically, God called me to start this blog from a single verse.

I will...talk of Your deeds.

- Psalm 77:12

That was it. Just talk of His deeds. How simple right? Wrong. It's been a battle at times - a battle between myself and Him.
Myself doesn't blog to lift others up. It blogs to get more comments. It blogs to see the follower stat rise. To promote myself, to please myself.
I still fight this mentality. It's hard to blog because of Love. It's hard to keep from turning people into followers.
But when we do that, we miss so much.
Dear Blogger, we can't blog to promote ourselves. And we absolutely can't see beautiful people made in God's image as mere numbers to boast about. Our reason for blogging must be so much more. When we became Christians, we gave up "self" to live for Christ. He should be the focus of our daily lives. And do you remember what He says about others? (see John 13:34 and Philippians 2:3-4)

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God;

- 1 John 4:7

My goal in blogging is to show Love to you and to God. The number of followers, comments, and stats doesn't really matter in light of eternity.
I challenge you to give your blog to Jesus. Let Him use it. Let the words you type be typed through prayer and out of the outflow of your relationship with Him.

The Encouragement
There's another side of the follower dilemma. When we look at our stats and are unsatisfied, we can often feel like we aren't making a difference.
I can't give you answers. I can't say if you are or are not making a difference. And guess what, I can't say that about my own blog either. But I've realized something.
More than 14% of the page-views on my blog have been from a single Asian country in which I don't know a single person. While this might seem unnerving to some, it gave me an interesting idea.
What if people read our words who we'll never know about? What if in that Asian country, in which being a Christian is unpopular, there was a fellow believer who was encouraged by something I said? What if God's using my blog in ways I'll never realize?
I don't know who reads the words I write. I don't know if they go in one ear and out the other or if they're really making a difference. But it doesn't matter. Because if I'm writing for God, isn't that enough?
My friend, you don't know how God's using you. So press on. Write for His glory, and give your blog into His loving hands. Even if no one comments or if it seems like no one cares, let Him do the work He's best at - changing the world.
Live to hear Him say these words,

Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.

- Matthew 25:21

Keep writing! Keep living for our Savior! Don't let anything distract you from what matters most.
Who knows how God will use your life if it's completely dedicated to His will?