Call me "Ahab"...

Writing and Gifting and Calling, oh my!

A few years back, I had an opportunity to complete a LifePlan with the Paterson Center. It was a comprehensive look at my past and my present to help me understand how what I’ve experienced has shaped me and led me to be who I am today. While in the midst of that weekend experience, God opened my eyes to something I cannot quantify, an incredible and indescribable gift.

Self-awareness.

I came out of that weekend convinced that I was on the right path in my life. Not that I doubted it previously, but that two days crystalized a previously squishy sentiment—I love to help people understand truth.

When I was an English teacher, my favorite moments came when a student’s eyes widened when we debated about who was responsible for Tom Robinson’s death in To Kill a Mockingbird, or when we would talk about the thesis of The Lord of the Flies—that when left without the constraints of society, man’s own nature draws one from common sense to savagery. As the class would discuss and argue from the text and provide evidence supporting their claims, realizations would dawn, smiles would emerge, brains would activate, and logical cogitation would occur. It was beautiful.

Pastoral ministry ups the ante from literature to life and that intimidates me from time to time, but setting the higher stakes aside, the task remains the same - helping people understand truth. The official phrasing from my LifePlan is that “Bob Allen exists to contextualize truth through preaching, teaching, and leading others to see and reflect God’s glory.” That may feel like a mouthful, but to me, it is priceless.

And because of that very goal, that very direction, that very wordy sentence, writing has become my white whale.

I’ve said before—I’ve written before—that my work can never be about me. Yet somehow it is always about me. It haunts and taunts.

Produce something. Receive little response.

Produce nothing. Question your calling.

A dirty cycle of confirmation and doubt ties me in knots, unable to separate my self-worth from my tangible productivity or lack thereof. An inexorable sense of duty weighs on me. I’d like to blame my friend Joe. When I was considering attending seminary he told me, “If God has given you the mental ability to do something, you have the responsibility to do something because not everyone has that ability.” I can’t blame Joe though because this is a “me” problem. No one else bears responsibility for my own activity or inactivity.

Like most things, it boils down to stewardship.

Every time I crack open my Bible and I read, the authors jump off the page at me. The literature of the Bible captivates me. Over the course of centuries, God’s Spirit carried along men who kept a written record of God’s deeds for God’s people so that they would know God’s love and plan for them (2 Peter 1:20-21). God used their voices, their minds, their styles, gifts given by him and for him, to communicate his truth.

David stands as a prime example. All he does is win battles, commit grievous sins, and write songs. From the depths of his soul, for good or ill, in times of blessing or hardship, he writes about his experiences with the Lord. He bares his soul for all to see and hear and, while we’re at it, sing along with him. His words reflect his journey and they all point to the truth the even he, the man after God’s own heart, was a desperate sinner who couldn’t get out of his own way most of the time. Yet in his failures, God never deserted nor abandoned him. God was faithful when David was faithless. The Psalms instruct us to trust in the Lord, to celebrate his goodness and kindness, to grieve our losses, to seek forgiveness, and to rely on God’s deliverance in times of trouble among other things. David didn’t just rule God’s people as king, he wrote. He served God’s people, giving them words to sing about the status of their hearts out of the status of his own heart.

David was a steward of the gifts God gave him, not just of his kingship, but of his soul as reflected in his words.

Similarly, the apostle Paul stewards his salvation in remarkable ways. Paul didn’t just travel around the Mediterranean preaching the gospel word; he wrote letter after letter to churches who needed reinforcement, encouragement, edification, and occasionally, rebuke. God blessed Paul with a writing ministry alongside his speaking ministry and his relational ministry; his itinerant missionary journeys highlight the multifarious nature of the work to which God called him: public speaker, Christian apologist, tent-maker, cheerleader, and friend. Paul does a lot of stuff. He sends letters. He travels; He dispatches workers like Timothy, Epaphroditus, Titus, Onesimus, and others to various places. Throughout, the gospel compelled him to speak and spread the name of Jesus in any and every way possible. In his first letter to Corinth, Paul writes, “…woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Co 9:16). He’s not going to stop, he can’t stop. Even when he is imprisoned, he won’t stop talking about Jesus (Philippians 1:12-13) or writing about Jesus (his letters to Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae, and his brother in Christ, Philemon). He stewarded the gifts of ministry God had given him time and again.

So, dear reader, you can perhaps see where guilt might set in on someone who feels called to write yet isn’t writing.

For nearly three months I’ve not written a word outside of my duties as a pastor.

Yet in this…whatever this moment is, I don’t feel guilt or shame, merely sorrow if you can imagine. Sorrow for the words I’ve written in the past with poor motivations; sorrow for the words unwritten out of fear; sorrow for the piles of dust that have accumulated due to neglect; these missed opportunities produce a melancholic stupor within me. I have neither remorse nor apathy, neither frustration nor tension because to ignore writing is to be numb to the highs and lows of it, the feeling of achievement and the feeling of inadequacy. Which is better, to try and fail or to not try and not fail? One certainly will test your heart. The other will cripple it.

And still stewardship beckons me to reconsider.

The words of a writer are precious, if only to the writer. The audience, large or small, niche or broad, receives the written word and chooses to read, to consider, to meditate, or to ignore altogether. Who’s to say what one decides to give ones attention to? Certainly not me. Yet the words written matter. The consonants and vowels that construe the sentences and paragraphs and pages are insignificant and yet can have real import. The proof is in the scriptures which have survived millennia to be passed down to us as they are today.

The written word moves from person to person, hand to hand, eyeball to eyeball, as it is read, taken in to be processed. Words written today will last if they focus on God’s story.

I often think of writers God has given to serve the church over the years: Lewis, Chesterton, Packer, Stott, Wilson, Tripp, Baxter, Edwards, Bunyan, Chalmers, Carson, its an innumerable list; a tsunami of grace bestowed through the written word. Everyday more words are being written. God’s story continues through these new works. They don’t drastically change the story, but they do continue it. The next chapters written adorn what we see historically, or at least that should be the goal.

And yet, the extraordinary gifts belie the truth. It is not the widely known gifts to the church which matter. It is the smaller, quieter gifts exercised in the midst of your home church which should shape you the most. It is the man in the pulpit when you show up for Sunday morning worship, the Sunday School teacher, the one singing special music, the greeter or usher, these gifts carry equal importance. Therefore they carry equal responsibility to be stewarded well by those who carry those weights.

No two people are the same, nor do they experience the same setbacks or triumphs, the same confidence or insecurity, the same gifts or personalities, and as such you cannot look to others to define success or failure. You can only look at Christ, his provision, his grace, and his call to be “you” to understand the ministry he is calling you to do, large or small. Only you can be you and only I can be me.

God made me to be who I am, equipped with skills and gifts to serve his kingdom in the way that he called me to serve his kingdom.

What does that mean?

For me, the task of writing lay before me, ever before me. Writing about Jesus, about his love, about his mercy, about his mission, his glory, his holiness, his provision, and so much more is a refreshing stream that will never run dry. I will never run out of words to express my gratitude or praise or worship of his immeasurable greatness because his grandeur and glory are endless. My prayer is that I would steward the gift that God has blessed me with.

For you, only you can know and carry out the ministry to which God is calling you. If you’re unsure what that might be, consider what stirs your heart. In his wisdom and grace he provides everything you need to serve his kingdom including abilities and opportunities. There is no perfect list of questions to ask yourself to uncover what God has for you to do. Begin with a simple question, “What do I like to do for others?” and let that lead you to other questions…

Is it conversations with friends about God’s love? Is it meeting tangible needs in your community? Is it encouraging others facing less than desirable circumstances with gifts or cards or texts? Is it helping the next generation learn about Jesus? Is it making others smile or laugh? Is it creating, cultivating, or curating words and images of beauty?

The answers to these question and a host of others can help you start your journey of self-awareness. My prayer for you is that you would engage in this deep work of self-examination even if it is painful. On the other side of the questions lies the joy of God as you walk the path he set your feet upon when he saved you. Eric Liddell’s famous words ring true, “God made me fast. And when I run I feel his pleasure.” There is nothing like the joy of knowing you are dead-center in the will of God, using the gifts he placed inside of you and the opportunities he has laid at your feet for his purposes.

May you too be a steward of the gift God has given you.

~SDG~