“What I tell you in the dark . . .”
Last fall, I was on my back porch with my small group. The passage we were reading was out of Matthew 10. My friend Millie was reading it and got to verse 27: “What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.” I felt my throat get tight, and my heart start beating faster. I think I looked up at her as everyone else stayed locked into their Bibles. It was as if I was having my own personal moment of conviction and the words sat like a ton of bricks in my lap. Ok, Lord. I hear you.
Matt, my preacher husband, had experienced his first 6 week sabbatical the previous summer. I had been challenged to write my own “sabbatical plan”—what was I going to intentionally learn, make room for, lean into in the absence of the normal activities. Truth be told, I was still working my normal schedule while having added a traveling husband, and summer activities for my girls. But I was determined to start exploring the craft of writing. I subscribed to a few writing podcasts and seminars. I purposed to spend a few lunch breaks in my car, logging some writing minutes. I did it. I loved it. I love learning about writing, and doing it. But there is a big chasm from me learning and doing, and releasing it into the world. The distance between releasing it and creating it isn’t really that far, but add in a good dose of “I don’t do anything that I’m not sure of the outcome,” it seems safer to let things sit on my laptop. So that’s what I’ve done.
Until the porch last fall. Followed by my quiet, “Ok! Ok!” to the Lord. A week or so later, a few ladies who had been a part of a prayer event I had led a few years before, were telling some others about the guide I had written. Their prayer guides were water-stained and worn on the edges. They both had revisited the guide recently—one expected her firstborn and wanting to pray over her home in a purposeful way; another living middle-school girl mom life, a husband working full-time and coaching, and her desperate for Jesus to be present in every room, and in everything. The timeliness of them dusting off those guides gave a transfusion of encouragement and courage to my fearful heart. The thought that something was useful, added value, and was worth revisiting undid me. God was kindly calling me to action and I knew more delay would have me in blatant disobedience.
The joy and freshness of this act of worship---writing—has brought delight and joy to my heart in a season of sad and weary. I share this in case some of you have forgotten a love or talent or pleasure that in the weightiness and responsibility of life, you have neglected or left unexplored. If nothing else for the sheer joy of the act itself, DO THE THING! Write the words, color the picture, play the music, sing the song, throw the ball, ride the bike, take the picture, explore the thing. Regardless of outcome, let’s take our foot off the break, and do it. Regardless of what God chooses to do with it, let’s be obedient and worship Him as we learn, create and release. He is so worthy.
