"My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways," declares the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9.
It was 1981. I was determined to be a writer. I'd put it on the back burner of my mind for over 15 years. So I went to the county library and checked out every book on writing that they allowed. Every book I read told me it was not going to happen. I needed a degree. My high school diploma didn't cut it. I needed to read the classics. What in the world were they? I needed some kind of credentials. How do you get a resume of credentials unless someone publishes what you have to say? Letters to the editors won't work.
All the professional advice from those books told me to expect hundreds of rejections. "Don't even think you'll be published for two or three years." Okay. I read the advice and as customary to my personality, I said to myself, "they don't know the God I have. If He wants me published, I'll get published." So I began writing and submitting to magazines.
Write what you know about. Don't try to write about what others know. Write for free just to get published. But every day, day in and day out, write.
That was no problem, I'd been keeping diaries and journals for years. When I became a Christian, I wrote puppet stories for children's worship on Sunday mornings. I wrote skits for youth to perform. Yet, any hopes of real writing was shelved due to ministry as a teacher, youth leader, deacon's wife, and finally a minister's wife--did I mention I had children?
I cannot begin to tell you how many times I cried out to God. Why Lord? Why can't I ever have time to write? Why can't I go to school for journalism or creative writing? Why are our finances so limited that I can't even afford typing paper and postage? (pre-computer days, can you believe it?) My mind swirled with ways I could accomplish my ambitions while serving the Lord, too. My mind was muddled with impossibilities. Why?
God's thoughts were not my thoughts and my thoughts were not His. He had a plan for me and at that time in my life, writing was not priority. However.
After multiple rejection slips, my first story, "Nothing Less Than a Miracle", was accepted by DECISION Magazine. They changed the title to "Second Miracle" but I didn't care. It was accepted and going to be published. How great was that? Two months before, it had been rejected by our Southern Baptist publication, Homelife. I needed to submit to places that wanted the type of material I wrote. Slant. That's what they called it. I rewrote it.
God's ways were indeed higher than my ways. And God's thoughts were far higher than my thoughts. Instead of publishing in a magazine with thousands of readers, the Lord put my story in a magazine with over two million readers. A year or so later Billy Graham's magazine contacted me asking permission to publish it in Spanish. I was thrilled. God was going to use my story to reach people in South America. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways," declares the Lord."
Never in my wildest dreams did I fathom the technology possibilities that we have today. No publisher needed. No editor but myself. A readership possibility of gazillions. I have no idea what the possibilites are for my writing. But God does.
Long ago, I gave up thinking I could make a living from it. Long ago I relinquished any preconceived ambitions for a Pulitzer. But with God as my constant guide, I don't think about what I want as much as I think about what He wants. Some days I get discouraged. But never does God let me forget that I am to write. And when I lose heart, I have friends God sends in my life who lift me up as the Israelites held up the arms of Moses when he wearied. Then God breaks forth and shows me His plan. What are you struggling with today? Have your thoughts gotten muddled? Are your plans confounded? When you let go and let God, He will direct. His ways are not yours. No, they are much higher. selahV
[copyrighted, SelahV Today, 2007]