Faith, Direction, and Your "Call" to Write

Just because you're "called" to write is no guarantee you will always know which direction to go. Even those who have been writing a long time and have experienced moderate success, still ponder their craft and career:

Should I sign with this publisher?
Should I wait and continue shopping my book?
Do I need an agent?
Is my agent really helping me?
Maybe I should just self-publish.
Was I wrong for self-publishing?
Am I writing in the right genre?
Is writing a waste of time?

And the questions go on.

You're mistaken if you think that being "called" to write makes things clearer. It doesn't.

Take Abraham, the father of the faith. He didn't have all the details before he pulled up stakes.

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going (Hebrews 11:8 NIV).

Hello? He "went… not knowing where he was going"? This grates against everything I am. I abhor agenda-less meetings and rudder-less vacations. I need maps, blueprints, and timetables. This faith stuff is taxing for a control freak like me.

But I'm beginning to wonder if faith isn't the heartbeat of calling.

Blaise Pascal, in his delightful collection of musings entitled Pensees, suggested that God is both hidden and revealed. "If there were no obscurity," Pascal says, "man would not feel his corruption: if there were no light, man could not hope for a cure." So God reveals enough of Himself to make faith reasonable, but not so much of Himself, that faith is unnecessary.

The same might be true about calling — it's both hidden and revealed.

God blesses us with individual talents and giftings, hunches and impulses. But He won't force us to use those gifts and follow those hunches. In fact, we may "bury our talent" (Matt. 25) if we so choose. God points us in the general direction, but He won't drag us along the path.

In other words, the "call" is not the "answer."

I used to think that being resolved about my "call" to write would clarify things. It hasn't. Heck, sometimes hearing the "call" only makes things worse. The apostle Paul felt "called" to Rome… where he was beheaded.

Okay. Do you still feel "called"?

For many of us, it's not enough that we hear the "call" to write. What we really want is a blueprint for success, a map, a GPS, a telescope to see down the road, and a safety net to catch us if we fall. Meanwhile, we're bleeding ourselves to death through introspection, worry, or indecision.

Some of you are pondering this question right now. The frustrations have piled up alongside the rejection slips. You're questioning your talents, your story, your agent, your genre, the market… you're questioning your call to write.

But the truth is, even if you ARE called to write, you will never have all the answers.