 Last month, I closed out my post with sharing how some simple advice—love God, love people—has set me free in the choices I make surrounding my reading, watching, and writing. And honestly, it’s just such a good idea, I wanted to go more into it. Because while it’s a good idea and a freeing concept, maybe it also seems a little vague. We hear the phrase “love God, love people” all the time in church, so maybe the phrase has lost a little bit of its sparkle. It sounds good. But what does it actually mean? How does it work? And what does it have to do with art? Love God. This might be the part that seems the most vague. Because while I know God is as real as you and me, it can be hard to figure out how to love something intangible, something that is so decidedly other than us. A year or so back, the Young Writer’s Workshop did a course called “How to Find God’s Calling For Your Life.” I remember being so excited going into it. I was sure I was going to get the master key so that I could have the confidence for any decision I might make. For the first time, I would know exactly what God wanted me to do. What I was actually wanting was a fool-proof way to make sure God wasn’t angry at me. Ambitious, perhaps. But in a way, that’s what I got. Just not the way I expected. As part of the course, they interviewed Sean Crowe (father of author Jaquelle Crowe Ferris). I was ready and listening, waiting for him to tell me what I was doing wrong so I could find confidence. But essentially what Sean taught us was that to a certain degree, I already know what I need to be doing. God is not some mystical, secret being who’s making me guess what He wants and punishing me when I fail. As long as I’m staying in relationship with Him, as long as I want to do his will, then I can know for sure that we’re okay. If I’m facing a decision, then He has given me the knowledge I need to make this decision now. It’s a constant lifetime of learning more. Maybe the decisions I make today aren’t the same decisions I’ll make ten years from now. But if God allows me to make a decision, then there is a purpose for it. In a lot of cases, Sean explained, our decisions are between two equally good things. If it were between a good thing and a bad thing, the decision may not be easy, but it is fairly certain. It’s easy to identify the good option. Choosing between two good things is harder. And Sean reminded us that it is okay to choose a good thing simply because we want it. It seemed a little sacrilegious to me at the time. I think we have the idea that to love God, we have to give up something constantly. I definitely had this idea. And there are times we’re called to sacrifice. But God has also given us good things to enjoy. We’ve gotten into the mindset almost that if it’s something that we want, something that makes us happy or excited, then it must not be what God wants for us. But God is totally cool with us being happy! And something I hadn’t considered at the time of that interview is that God actually put those desires inside me and was working through them. That interview was a huge step, not only in my writing journey, but also in my spiritual life. For the first time, I realized that God was not out there trying to find any excuse to punish me. Choosing whether or not I read The Hunger Games for instance was not going to send me to hell. And you know what? That did give me more confidence. So, how does loving God come into what we read, watch, or write? At this point in my life, I just don’t think God’s going to send us to hell based on what we do or do not read. I do think what you read affects you and your worldview. I also think God gives us gut feelings for a reason. I think we’re perfectly capable of picking up a book and knowing when it’s not doing anything positive for us. I think it’s easy to think that if it’s not an explicitly Christian book with a heavy moral that we can’t glorify God with it. But in essence, that’s limiting God to just one way of working. God can work through anything. And everyone’s relationship with Him is different, so everyone’s opinions on what to read and watch is going to be different. God’s given you all sorts of things to enjoy. You’ve just got to choose which one calls to the desires He’s already placed in you, and the one that will affect you for the better. This has turned out to be super long, so I think next month, I’ll dive into the loving people part. I think this is enough for now. If you’re on YWW, I would highly recommend you check out that interview with Sean Crowe (you can find it by searching his name in their content library).
4 Comments
|
