Blog by Friday

Earlier this week I had the startling realization that I have not posted a blog in a month.  I pledged that I would write a blog by Friday.

At the beginning of the week, that seemed so doable.

It’s not that I don’t have any ideas.  I have lots of ideas.  The problem, as I told a friend the other night, is that I need a 10 minute idea, because that seems to be about all the time I have these days.

“So write about the value of having ten minutes,” she said.

“I could do that,” I answered.  But when I hung up the phone, I washed dishes and walked the dog and went to bed.

So I told myself I would shelve my ideas that needed more time, and just pick any old idea that I could jot down quick.  Someone once said that a mediocre idea that is implemented is better than a brilliant idea that is never manifested.  “I will put this theory to the test!” I said.  I will write about the value of taking action.

Ironically, I never did.

Tonight I came home and went to turn on my kitchen sink. I had no faucet.  At least, not where I expected.   Apparently the maintenance guys have been here and given me a new kitchen faucet.  It’s been so long since I put the request in, I had forgotten about it.  (I had, in fact, requested an entirely new kitchen sink, but apparently they decided I only needed a new faucet.)

I spent a disconcerting moment with my hand flailing in midair before my brain registered what my eyes were seeing.  Have you ever had that jolting feeling when something is unexpectedly unfamiliar?  It’s amazing how automatically we maneuver in familiar spaces.  My hand expected a single handle in the middle; my new faucet presented separate hot and cold, small and to the sides.  I preferred my previous style, but at least this one doesn’t spray water out the side, so I won’t complain.  Maintenance to me is kind of like cooking – If I don’t have to do it myself, I try not to complain about the outcome.

As I stood there rinsing dishes I thought, maybe I can blog about my new faucet!  I’m not sure what spiritual lesson I would have drawn, but I’m quite sure God could have written something.

And that, my friends, is the point.

Yes, there was a point.  Read it again.

Sometimes life is a bit like this blog post.  Rambling and circuitous and just plain a struggle.  We have ideas that never come to fruition.  We don’t have enough time.  We don’t have enough energy.  We’re in a situation and we don’t see the point – we may even doubt there is any point at all – but we keep trudging along.

Until God writes us something.

God does, in fact, write each one of us something.

He has written our days in his book (Psalm 139:16).  He has written His Spirit on the tablets of our hearts (2 Corinthians 3:3).  He is the original author and perfector of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).

God does not write random and rambling blog posts.  He writes the very book of life.

Thank God He writes better than me.

You are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts (2 Corinthians 3:3).