Worthwhile

“My dear friends, stand firm and don’t be shaken. Always keep busy working for the Lord. You know that everything you do for Him is worthwhile.”  1 Corinthians 15:58 (CEV)

I’ve always loved writing.  There is just something about processing my words between pen and paper that makes the whole thing more effective for me, more fulfilling even.  I used to look down at something I completed and sigh with satisfaction, feeling like it was a part of me that was looking back up.  My face in sentences and my personality in word-pictures.  I never, ever thought it wasn’t worthwhile.

 Then came life, the adult version, with all its drama and controversy and sundry very SERIOUS decisions, and my writing sort of shrank into the background.  I just felt that with all the pushing and shoving going on I needed to give a little in the “purely pleasure” department.  So I stopped writing for a few years – for me and everyone else.  And something inside died a little every day.

 But the remarkable thing about whatever God plants inside of a person is the resilience it has to spring right back to life.  I remember the day I decided to start writing again, and it was as if new life was flowing into my fingers with each key I punched.  My brain was going a million miles and hour, and the breeze it stirred up in all that clutter – well!  Let’s just say that was the beginning of a much needed round of spring cleaning!  It was exhilarating and wonderful, as it always is when we come around to God’s plan for our lives.  But something else amazed me:  because of the grace I had seen in my life, my desires had changed.

 Now the things I longed to pour out on the page were centered around Him.  Now my heart skipped a beat as I looked down and saw part of Him looking back up through my words.  Now my excitement was in seeing His personality and His wonderful face in those word-pictures.  And as I am sure nothing we are made to do is done in vain, I am doubly sure that if I write for HIM, that promise is raised to an exponential power.  No matter who reads or critiques or admires what I write now, I will never again think it is something insignificant to be shoved to the bottom shelf, because I know I do it for Him.  And this only serves to motivate me to excellence, because I want to give Him my best. 

 Thank Him today for your gift, whatever it is.  He has bestowed it with the same grace He shows us in everything He does in our lives.  It has purpose; don’t forget that!  And it will never, ever be done in vain, as long as you do it for Him!