Writer's Block

So let's begin with the typical "I know.  I has been too long. Blah, blah, blah."  Good?  Okay, let's move on.  :)

I've been thinking a lot about the story God wants to write in and with us again lately.  I love how God uses our lives, which includes the joys and pains (pump, pump, pump pump it up... sunshine, what else? rain! sorry.. squirell!!!) to tell a story and ultimately lead others to Him.  It never ceases to amaze me how God uses our story and without us even know most times, He interweaves our lives with others whom we can use our story with or they can use their story to bless ours.  The creativity of this I may never understand, but I find it unbelievably awesome.  Poor sentence I know, but how God does this totally wrinkles my brain.  I see my youth group (whom I love dearly) and I see a number of young people who have had a difficult story with which I can connect due to the struggles of my past.  Do I love dealing with hurts, seeing kids hurt and digging up my junk again?  Not so much.  Do I love that God can use my hurt and my junk to bring peace into young lives?  Oh my word yes!!!

So about this story thing.  My thought is this.  How many times to we take the pen from the author?  I am speaking out of a recent experience where I was in the midst of an amazing story that God was writing and yet for some reason I felt to take the pen and inject my little ideas in and see how things might go.  So people gotta learn the hard way I guess.  Sheesh.  Yet we do this often don't we?  Isn't it annoying when we show someone a picture that we've drawn, a song or poem that we've written and they take our pen or pencil and say, "Oh this is good, but..." or "Just let me change this and it would be great..."  Kind of makes you want to punch them doesn't it or as we Christians say, "Lay hands on them.."  I always hated in school when someone would do that to me.  It's a different story if I've asked for help, but them changing my story, song, poem or art without me asking is just plain annoying.  Yet again, I/we do this with God don't we? 

Long story short, I did this and as anybody could have predicted I fell flat on my face.  I fell hard.  So again I found myself brushing off the dust, licking my wounds and asking God what just happened.  Thankfully it became quickly obvious what I had done and the good part about being flat on my face was that it was a short trip as to where I needed to be before my God and the Author of my story. 

I think I must be getting old or maturing or whatever that is called because it has not taken as much time, as much whining or whatever else my routine use to be for me to get back on my feet, find my first love and give God back the pen and let Him continue writing my story.  Reality is only He can write the only story that matters in my life.  Only He can write the story in my life that will impact others.  Only He writes the story in my life that offers hope, peace, strength and love (true love) in the midst of a world that offers me temporary fixes, chaos and disappointment. 

Who's writing your story?  Who has the pen?

Blessings...
swl