Writing and waiting like David

*A note before you read this. After doing an audit of my blog in 2022, I have decided to leave content that speaks to the Christian I was at the time this was written. I no longer identify as Christian (and haven’t for a very long time.) I chose to leave these posts because it is who I was then and it is important to me to be honest and true with every iteration and evolution of self that I experience. I may decide to add comments to the end of posts like this as well

I’ve been thinking along these lines lately. I have this habit of getting down on myself because I’m not doing what everyone else is doing.

For example, over at Dave Long’s Faith*In*Fiction message boards, there are several talented people that I’ve been hanging out with for quite awhile now and I’ve been praying for them and watching them get their books published or their short stories published. I celebrate with them and then leave the computer screen and wonder what I’m doing wrong. Why am I not getting any publishing credits?

I had a talk with God and He let me know (again) that when He sent Samuel to anoint David as king, David didn’t storm the palace and kick Saul out in the name of God. David went straight back to the field and his sheep. And I really don’t know exactly how long David went back and forth from the sheep to Saul.

God also showed me that even when everyone cheered David for being a hero and killing the giant Philistine, David was truly just doing something he had always done, this time with a bigger audience.

He didn’t have anyone cheering him on in the field when he killed the vicious animals. He had no audience at all. And yet with no audience and no applause, he did his job anyway and was confident that he could.

Someone asked me if I had a novel to “pitch” at the ACFW conference next month and I felt that familiar rock in my gut and I started to explain how this is my first ACFW conference and blah, blah, blah. Then I stopped and remembered David and I told the person that I think I’m like David, anointed with a calling and sure about it, but I need some more time in the field with my sheep.

And God’s peace settled over me.

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