Writing for the Lord | My Faith

Hello, fellow campaigners of the writing world! It’s A. F. Kopp, back with another post! Two weeks in a row? I’m on a rolllll!

One thing that I am always wary of talking about is writing in conjunction with God–or at least that was how I was for a while. God has been central to my life for many years, but when I first started writing, that wasn’t the case. My current WIP, The Hope of Hattie Phelan (tHoHP), was the first Christian writing that I had ever delved into. Though I started it over five years ago, I didn’t really add the Christian storyline until later.

So, what I am trying to say is that it is sometimes hard for me to consider writing a way to glorify God. “Why is that?” you might ask. Well, for some reason, if I were to write anything for God, I had a hard time feeling like it was good enough or that I could easily do more. And then I’d feel bad if I added a romantic subplot–or even if the main plot was a romance between two Christian characters (not that I know anything about romance since I’m 21-years-single). If I were to write about God, I wanted it to ooze Him.

But sometimes in life, it doesn’t feel like He is oozing out of everything I do. Sometimes, I feel so on fire that I could tell everyone in every waking moment what Jesus has done in my life but in other moments I would be wrestling with my flesh and not be “feeling it.” And the same thing happened to my writing. At one moment in my life, I wanted to write something that glorified God so much that people would be saved upon reading it. I know, very ambitious, but the evangelist in me was very much wishing I could do something for His kingdom, and, evidently, writing has something to do with my life. I have a cool testimony about that.

A year or two ago, I was about to give up writing in total. Even though I was writing the Hope of Hattie Phelan, which centers on a girl overcoming bitterness towards God, I felt useless. I didn’t feel that my writing would ever touch anyone. Plus, because I also struggled with idolizing writing, I felt that I needed to burn anything and everything about it so that I wouldn’t idolize it. So I prayed. I laid down the fleece with tear-stained eyes and asked God, “if you want me to continue writing and not bury my talent, You will have to show me clearly.” And no joke, before the end of the day I got a message from a mutual friend who had a magazine for girls and she asked if I could write an article about God using my writing. Pretty cool, right?

So, now I know that writing is a part of my calling, whether it is fiction or non-fiction, or poetry (I literally have no idea what God’s plan with it is). But one thing I am learning is that it won’t be my writing style or my character development that will “make people saved” like I wanted to. If God wants to use it that way, cool beans. I’m down. BUT, God has been showing me the importance of sowing seeds.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.

1 Corinthians 3:6 (NASB)

And funnily enough, this was something that I talked about in my book, the Hope of Hattie Phelan. I can’t do anything mighty in my own strength. Firstly, God is the one who gives me strength, but it is also He who causes the seeds to grow. I may obey Him and fulfill the tasks He has set before me, but it is between Him and the readers what seeds they pick up and toss away.

So, why is it hard for me to consider writing as a gift? Because I know I’ll mess up. Haha. I know it is stupid, but that is the root of it. I know I am not perfect so I am afraid to show the world what I have created only for it to fall to the dust untouched. I’m afraid I will pour my heart and soul into writing something and no one reads it or likes it. I want to impact people and make them see points or cause a change in people. If I don’t do that, what’s the point? But in the end, it isn’t me. It’s God.

So, the moral of the story. God is the one who gives gifts, takes them away, but also grows the seeds He directs us to plant.

So, keep sowing, fellow adventurers!

Respectfully,
A. F. Kopp