223 – 3 Essentials for a Christian Writer’s Life

Write from the Deep

Writing is not an easy profession. Being a Christian writer can be even more difficult. These three essentials for a Christian writer’s life will ground you in your faith, enabling you to write and build a career with peace and confidence.

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Recently I listened to a couple of books that got me thinking about today’s topic. What is essential for a Christian writer’s life? We live in a busy world with a thousand things demanding our time and attention every day. I don’t think that’s overstating it. We’ve only got one life. How are we going to choose what to do with the time God gives us? What is our priority?

Even if we were to weed out obvious things to say no to, like sin or clear distractions, that still leaves a multitude of demands, ideas, activities, and so on, to consider. Many of which you can make a good case for. The choices we make matter, because what you give your time and attention to is what shapes your life.

That’s where those books inspired me. The first one is titled Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown.

The subtitle was a revelation: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. It seems like today’s world is all about the urgent, unending pursuit of more—doing it all and having it all. This book is about deliberately, ruthlessly choosing to do less so you can focus on what matters most to you.

Today we want to step back from the myriad details of our lives. We want to step back from complicated plans and programs, endless to-do lists, and a plethora of shoulda woulda couldas. Instead, we’ll pare down to 3 essentials, or guiding principles, to help shape and guide your life as a Christian and a writer. God gave us our creative gifts for good purposes, so we want to ensure that we’re willing vessels, available anytime, anywhere, for the tasks God gives us.

We’ve used the term essentials, or guiding principles, but you can also call them core precepts, or a “rule of life.” By rule, we don’t mean legal regulations but rather a way of organizing your life toward a purpose.

Essential 1 – Abide in Christ

John 15:4-5 (ESV) says, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

Abiding in Christ means we WILL bear fruit. Not abiding in Christ means we won’t bear fruit. Apart from Christ we can do nothing. This is so simple, yet too often we fail to realize and carry out the dire necessity of this. Maybe in part because it’s hard to quantify what abiding in Christ looks like, or what it means in a practical sense. Abiding in Christ (or some translations use the word “remaining” in Christ) is more than just believing in Christ. As an article on Crossway.org puts it, it’s “staying vitally connected” to Christ.

An article on DesiringGod.org describes abiding in Christ as being “…attached to the vine in such a way that it is receiving all that the branch has to give…” The article goes on to say, “…abiding is believing, trusting, savoring, resting, receiving.”

What does that look like in a practical, daily sense? The Crossway.org article says, “It is the lifelong extension of encountering Jesus.”

That’s still probably going to look different for everyone, but I think one universal principle is to make encountering Jesus your daily mindset.

Make Encountering Jesus Your Daily Mindset

This is the essential. The rule of the day is to live in such a way as to believe and trust his promises, to savor and rest in his presence, to be constantly and expectantly open-handed to receive everything we need from him moment by moment. It’s to keep in the forefront of our mind that we’re working and living and resting in communion and in union with him.

When we’re writing, when we’re plotting, when we’re doing a day job that might not be writing; when we get up in the morning, when we go to bed at night; when we brush our teeth, mow the lawn, run errands, fix dinner—all of this is done with a constant awareness of, and reliance on, our connection with the Vine.

But mindfulness of this—or anything else for that matter—is a very real struggle in our culture today. Our brains are being assaulted with distractions, and being rewired to need them. That’s why this essential is also a practice. It’s something we have to choose to continually do, and it isn’t easy. Thankfully we don’t have to do this in our own power.

The Crossway.org article has this to say, “…Jesus does not leave us to ourselves. Even though he commands us to abide in him—and we are responsible to abide there, and guilty if we don’t abide—nevertheless he himself keeps us there. And we would not abide there without his crucial keeping.”

So, don’t forget to ask for God’s help and know you’ll receive it.

Do Frequent Checks

We should also be frequently checking ourselves to make sure we aren’t neglecting or straying from the true Vine. Y’all know that we’re prone to do this. The Crossway.org article puts it like this: “…we are often tempted to find our life-giving sap from another plant.”

We’re prone to disobedience, apathy, forgetfulness, or just plain drifting. The good gifts and desires God has given us—like creativity and writing—have a tendency to become distorted. That’s the very last thing we want if we’re going to have something of value to share with the world.

Making abiding in Christ an essential, a life rule, rather than just a good idea or a random desire will help us fight those tendencies and truly bear fruit both in our lives and in our writing.

This essential also does the most important thing of all: it helps us love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. Jesus tells us in Matthew 22:37-38 that this is the first and greatest commandment.

Essential 2 – Build & Nurture Relationships

Our next essential is to build and nurture relationships. This is in keeping with our design. We were created for relationship by a relational God. We can’t flourish if we’re not living according to our design.

That said, we want to stress that how this plays out in each person’s life will be very different. Some of us thrive in the midst of a large community of friendships and networks. Some of us do better with fewer relationships. Too many people becomes overwhelming.

No matter what this looks like for you, the point is that you make relationships an essential in your life. We get strength from our community of friends.

• We carry each others’ burdens (Galatians 6:28).
• We learn in 1 thes 5:11 that We encourage each other and build each other up (1 Thessalonians 5:11).
• We teach each other (Colossians 3:16).
• We help each other and have each other’s backs (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12).
• We sharpen each other (Proverbs 27:17).
• We pray for each other (James 5:16)
• We comfort each other (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

We simply can’t live a “Lone Ranger” life and expect to thrive. We need all the things relationships offer, and other people need those same things from us in return. In our busy lives today, relationships suffer. They take time and energy, two very precious commodities, so we must make relationships an essential if they’re to flourish.

As writers, we need to be writing out of our deep love for people, our connection with them, and our understanding of them. That comes from our journey of doing life with people. Of being vulnerable and walking with others in their vulnerabilities. Hanging in there through the glory, and mess, and triumphs, and failures. We earn the right to speak to others when we’re in the trenches with them. That’s also where we learn to shift our writing from being writer focused—as in “I just want to tell my story”—to being reader focused—as in, “How can I best serve readers?”

Loving God with all our hearts is the greatest commandment, but Matthew 22:39 tells us that loving others is the second. We simply can’t do that if we have no relationship with them.

However, please don’t hear us saying you have to spend every minute of your life with people. Many writers are introverts who need down time and alone-time. What we’re saying is that building and nurturing relationships should be a guiding principle in how you’re spending your life and what you’re doing with your time. Ask yourself: Is what I’m doing right now ultimately going to help or hinder my relationships with others? Will I be investing or isolating? That hour you take for solitude may be exactly what you need in order to recharge and be ready to engage others with the best version of you.

Essential 3 – Eliminate Hurry

Our last essential is to eliminate hurry from your life. This might seem like a strange thing for us to pick as an essential, but a book called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer makes a profound case for this idea. I highly recommend all Christians read it. It’s paradigm-shifting.

It’s near impossible to effectively carry out the first two essentials we mentioned if we’re always in a hurry.

How can we abide when we’re in a rush? How can we build and nurture relationships when we’re always on the go? We’ve probably all been on the receiving end of an appointment or conversation with someone who’s in too much of a hurry to listen. Whether it’s a doctor or a good friend, the result is the same. We don’t feel heard or seen, which leaves us feeling uncared for.

Think of this third principle—to eliminate hurry—as a practical way to carry out the first two. It’s a way to make space in our lives for what matters most. Also, think of it as a way to love yourself. We want to love God, and we want to love our neighbors, but Matthew 22:39 says that we’re to love others as we love ourselves. That means we don’t neglect self-care!

A hurried life is a stressful life not a peaceful life. Hurry creates angst and a feeling that we’re never good enough, fast enough, strong enough, smart enough, safe enough. Hurry is the enemy of abiding, the enemy of knowing deeply and being known, and the enemy of time and attention. We can’t listen to ourselves, let alone others, when we’re in a hurry.

What about our writing life? Writing that’s hurried suffers from inauthenticity and superficiality. It lacks insight and resonance. We’ve all read superficial writing. It’s out there, and at the end of the day, it’s ineffective. Don’t add to it.

What does the elimination of hurry look like in our lives? Again that’s probably different for everyone, but two key ideas to put this into practice are to create margin and to slow down.

Create Margin in Your Life

• This means not just that you don’t over book, but it means that you do “under book.” Allow more time than you think you need for each appointment or activity. Put white space in between appointments—and book deadlines!—so you can reset, refocus, and rest. Don’t schedule anything back to back.
• Work to pare down your schedule, to pursue less, as the book Essentialism suggests. Do few things and do them well.
• Fair warning: Creating margin will require you to be disciplined and ruthless in your choices!

Slow Down

The second way we eliminate hurry is to slow down By this we mean actively work to set a slower pace. This will be hard. Our culture is zooming along at a frantic pace, and we’ve been caught up and swept along. We have to dig our heels in if we’re going to stop the madness.

The goal of this essential is to experience your life. To savor it rather than be exhausted by it. Stop and think about how that sounds. What could that feel like to be free from rushing? I think that’s why so many people love Amish and historical fiction. It’s the lure of a slower life that feels impossible today.

How would your stress level change if you regularly drove the speed limit because you weren’t in a hurry to get where you were going? Or if you could saunter through the grocery store, and play lazy games of Candyland with your kids? If you had time to savor a cup of coffee with a friend or an impromptu conversation with a neighbor. You can do this if you create margin and actively work to set a slower pace.

Eliminating hurry fosters creativity, patience, peace, mindfulness, rest, delight, and love. It makes your life and writing fertile ground for bearing fruit.

God’s Design

Abide in Christ, build and nurture relationships, and eliminate hurry from your life. Following these principles will help you live out God’s design for your writing and life as you love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself.

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3 essentials for a Christian writer’s life to ground you in your faith so you can write and build a career with peace and confidence. #christianwriter #amwriting
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Books mentioned in the podcast

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

What do you count as essential in your life?

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A big thank you to our October sponsor of the month, Kimberley Woodhouse! She’s an award-winning and bestselling author whose books have received the Carol Award, Holt Medallion, Reader’s Choice Award, Selah Award, Spur Award, Christian Market Book Award, Golden Scroll Award among others. A popular speaker/teacher, she’s shared with over 1,000,000 people at more than twenty-five hundred venues across the country. Her fortieth book, 70 North, releases this month. You can also connect with Kim at kimberleywoodhouse.com

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The post 223 – 3 Essentials for a Christian Writer’s Life appeared first on Write from the Deep.