Your Writing Career, A Pencil in God's Hand, Part 1

Have you ever stopped to think about how amazing our God is? To really think about it? Today, I’d like to consider a couple of points that drive home just how wonderful our God is. Next time we meet, we’ll take this information and see how we can apply it to our lives, specifically our writing careers.

God is Really, Really Big.

Christians often use the buzz word “omniscient” which gives a sense of God being rather large. He’s everywhere all at the same time, and well, that’s pretty humongous.

Canis Majoris and the Sun

In his video, “How Great is Our God,” Louie Giglio does an impressive job of conveying just how BIG our Creator is. In it, Louie describes Canis Majoris, the size of the largest known star, this way—“If the earth were a golf ball, next to it, Canis Major would be as tall as Mount Everest. You could fit 7 quadrillion earths into Canis Majoris. That’s enough golf balls to cover the entire state of Texas 22 inches deep.”

Wow.

He goes on to say, “And God breathed that star into existence.” Psalm 33:6–“By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.”

I don’t know of anyone else that can expel stars out of his mouth using his breath as the creative medium. Do you?

Psalm 8: 3-4–“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained; What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him?”

And yet, He does…care for us, that is. Another point to add to His Amazingness Factor.

He’s Got a Handle on Time–Literally

When I was younger, I struggled to understand God’s perspective on time. Then a very wise man explained it to me this way. He held a pencil in front of him, parallel to the ground, and said that it represented all of time. At the tip was Creation, a little further down was Abraham, Moses, the Prophets. About the mid-way point, was the cross, Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. We don’t know how long the pencil is, but most students of Scripture agree that we find ourselves close the eraser end of it.

God is holding the pencil (a.k.a. Time) firmly in his grasp, and He sees all of Time. At the same time. All in one massive glance.

God is not chained to a single notch in the pencil as we are. He is not a slave to the undaunted momentum of the clock as it relentlessly drives forward.

On the left hand, He sees the first flowers of Creation blooming for their Maker, and on the right, He sees the last to show their color before He destroys this old world to give way to the New Earth. He sees Ahab weeping over the vineyard he can’t have at the same time that He sees Jeremiah weeping over a rebellious Israel. The words “Crucify him” ring in his ear simultaneously with, “Father, forgive them.” At once, He is witness to the early Christians falling in Roman arenas and to Rome falling to the Vandals, some 400 human years further down the pencil.

There is a tiny notch in the Great Pencil of Time that belongs to each of us. He’s forming you in your mother’s womb at the same instant that He’s sending the angels to escort you Home. It’s already done. Victoriously written. And we are the privileged ones allowed to see it unfold one day at a time. To discover each new bend that the next moment brings.

God sees every instant between our birth and death. More than that, He lovingly, wisely, painstakingly crafted them. To wish it to be any differently is to spit in the face of God’s creative genius.

Ps 133:13-15–For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret,  And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;

Ps 133: 16-17 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;  And in Your book were all written  The days that were ordained for me,  When as yet there was not one of them.  How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!  How vast is the sum of them!

Inside our life timelines, are our individual Writing Career Timelines.

Ps 133: 4–Even before there is a word on my tongue (or in a Word doc), Behold, O LORD, You KNOW it all.

KNOW—present tense, indicating God’s ability to see ALL of time in His present tense.

Imagine that! God already knows what we are going to write, whether our words will glorify Him or bring him dishonor. Whether we’ll follow His leading in the work we produce, or whether we’ll write what we want. He already has each word recorded! Kind of intimidating, but also terribly comforting.

Why comforting? Because He already sees every mistake I’ll make, and yet He loves me anyway. He knows every failure, and yet He still called me to write. He must believe that despite all my shortcomings, enough good will come of my writing to make it worth The Calling. Now that’s comforting, emboldening, sustaining.

Think on this—the same God who breathed Canis Major into existence and keeps that massive hunk of burning rock spinning right where it belongs, the same God who sees all of Time at one mind-boggling glance, thinks you’re worthy of your calling as a Christian writer. If that doesn’t encourage you, I’m not sure what will.

Next time I’m at Reflections in Hindsight, we’ll take this new-found awe and learn how it can and should change the way we view ourselves as Christian writers.

Until then, worship your Creator and the Master of Time the way He deserves—with bended knees, lifted hands, and a supple heart.

–April W Gardner is the author of the Creek Country Saga and the Sr. Editor of the literary site, Clash of the Titles. http://www.aprilwgardner.com

 

 

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