The Writer Is Best Served Giving Glory To The Author

​I get asked sometimes, how do you come up with something to write about every day?

My answer is short: God.

It's God who takes moments in my life, experiences, hopes and thoughts and dreams, and weaves them into stories. Messages. Essays.

I will tell you, I could never write as plentifully as I do now back in the days when I thought I was the actual writer.

There's a story in the bible about a man named Samson. A group of men called the Philistines were after Samson and his people. So Samson's people, looking out for their own well-being, bound Samson up with a rope and turned him over to the Philistines.

Only, Samson didn't stay bound long. The rope he was bound with fell from his arms as he approached his would be captors, and with the jawbone of a donkey Samson found nearby, he defeated a thousand Philistines.

Quite the accomplishment, right?

Samson clearly thought so, because after the victory he spoke these words:

“With the jawbone of a donkey,
heaps upon heaps,
with the jawbone of a donkey
have I struck down a thousand men.”

I read that like one of the earliest touchdown celebrations in the endzone. The wide receiver looking at the crowd and pointing to the number on his jersey.

But shortly after that celebration, dying of thirst and exhausted from the battle, Samson cried out to God: you have delivered me this great victory, must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the defeated?

And the bible tells us, shortly after Samson pointed to God's role in the victory:

"Then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived."

Writing used to be exhausting to me when I thought the writing fell solely on me to produce and when after writing I would read something as if written totally by me. I was caught in this endless cycle of personal battle followed by celebration and weariness.

Today though, as I recognize God as the author of every word I write, and when I see God as the answer to my writer's block, and God as the path to new ideas and ideas well expressed, when I see God as the paper and the pen, there are no cycles, there is only God.

I love at the end of a sporting event, someone has scored that game winning basket or hit the walk-off homerun, and a reporter sticks a microphone in the athlete's face and asks them, how do you feel about what you just did?

And not infrequently, the athlete will respond, I give all the glory to God.

I know that makes some uncomfortable, they feel like television in that setting is not a place for an athlete to be sharing their faith. But they aren't really pointing to their faith in that moment as much as they are pointing to the author of the story a reporter is wanting them to comment on.

They are really put in a position of deciding, do I take credit for something I didn't do?

Do I sing a song about what I've done or point to the actual writer and producer of the song?

As fellow believers in God, these athletes have discovered what I've discovered in my life. If I lean on my own abilities, my own endurance, my own plans and paths - if I lean on me to perform all the magic, there might indeed be some magic, but it will have a very short shelf life.

There may come some magical victories, but they will leave me dying of thirst.

If writing the story of your life gets to feeling exhausting, maybe consider that you have a co-author available to you for starters. And then, start celebrating that co-author, and if you celebrate him long enough, and you might eventually turn all the writing over to him.

For me personally, I've discovered that's where all of my best stories come from.

God.