Dear Young Writer,

Dear Young Writer,

There will be times when you write with the wind in your sails, when the world is too full to take in, and ideas leap up so fast you can’t reel them in. And then there will be times— probably more often— when you can’t remember what those other times were like. Remember that both can be good and reflect God’s glory.

Just because you’re writing feverishly doesn’t mean it’s all going to be good; and just because you aren’t writing, it doesn’t mean you have nothing good to say.

Remember that God turned bitter desert water sweet, and he can surely turn your few, feeble words into a cup of cold water for someone who needs it. Then again, he may leave you in the wilderness for awhile to make you thirsty for him, so that when you reach the other side, the world looks more like a garden than you ever remembered.

Remember you were a human long before you were a writer, and that you rest in God’s hand, which is no small thing.

Remember that in God’s hand, a piece of wood turned a river to blood, because Moses’ staff had become “the staff of God” (Ex. 4:20). Who’s to say that in God’s hand, your words couldn’t turn someone’s barren heart into a river? As Francis Schaeffer would say, it all depends on whether you’re consecrated to him.

“Consider the mighty ways in which God used a dead stick of wood,” Shaeffer wrote, “‘God so used a stick of wood’ can be a banner cry for each of us… The rod of Moses had to become the rod of God, so that which is me must become the me of God. Then I can become useful in God’s hands.

“The Scripture emphasizes that much can come from little if the little is truly consecrated to God. There are no little people and no big people in the true spiritual sense, but only consecrated and unconsecrated people.”[i]

You might be young, young writer, but you’re not little in God’s eyes. You’re his (and so are your stories).

I can’t really think of a better reason to keep writing.

Your friend,

b.j.

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(P.S. If you ever need a hand, I’d love to come alongside you in your writing journey. We can get in touch here if you’re interested.)

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[i] Francis Shaeffer, No Little People. (Crossway Books, 1974: Wheaton, IL), 25