Past Words

Years ago I used to run an online devotional ministry called Encounters!. Starting out as a weekly email devotion, I ended up creating a website, had a distribution somewhat less than 175 people, and basically poured out into words what the Lord was speaking into my own heart. Back then, I was considerably less jaded about certain aspects of ministry. The last few days, I've been looking back over some of those devotionals. It was interesting, because looking back at things I've previously written is not something I usually do. I immediately recognized them as words I put on the page, yet at the same time I got the sense they were written by someone long gone. A decade of perspective and experience will do that to you, I suppose.

In my archives there are also seven years of Bible study material I produced while serving as teacher of an adult Sunday School class. Again, I found the same phenomena - I instinctively knew the words were mine, yet they felt almost alien to me. The words given to me, and the Spirit in which they were written, were for a particular purpose in a particular place at a particular time in history. They were words written to teach Truth and to inspire belief. But I'm not sure I was the target. Perhaps that's part of the reason they feel so strange. The spiritual benefit to me was not the words, but the moment with God I experienced in producing them. It was part of a passion for the written word - a passion I wish to reawaken and hence the reason for having this blog.

Writing was always my creative outlet, along with symphonic and marching bands. I shut down those activities years ago out of fatigue and a yearning for new direction, but I never replaced them with anything else creative. I've spent most of this decade in the world of "have to". It was a choice (or series of choices) I'm coming to view as a mistake. The price my soul has paid for not pursuing the creative gifts I was given has wounded me somehow. Recovering that balance is going to be hard to do, but I feel it is necessary.

Experiencing joy is virtually impossible when you spend most of your time hiding from it.