Lessons in Seeking

Today is the last day of October – the month where we bloggers try to write every day, so today, I will try to wrap up my Seeking Jesus series even though technically, I did not write for public consumption every day, and it could and possibly will keep going on and on. 😉 This year I joined the challenge only wanting to seek Jesus first in my life. I was hoping simply to find Jesus, and I hoped that you also would find Jesus. I did not pre-plan any post. I came to the computer with open hands and prayer and asked the Lord to speak through me. I tried to think about my writing as if I needed to tell someone an important story. Today, I am going to share some lessons in seeking.

Lesson number one: I don’t write well when I feel like I am the one people are seeking. For example if I write something that resonates with others, it is usually a fluke 🙂 and it makes me shy to continue writing. This challenge made me keep going past the feeling of not being able to create something people would continue to enjoy.

Lesson number two: Tagging of off one, I feel pressured to fix people’s broken places. When I offer Jesus as the balm, everyone is relieved, me and the recipient of Jesus’s grace in weak places.

Lesson number three: I gave myself grace when I had nothing to offer. I did not force myself to create when the Spirit had not moved in me to do so.

Lesson number four: If I don’t think people are reading or enjoying my work, I want to give up. Also, if I fail in one area, I think, “I should just stop – I am a failure.” Giving myself grace to rest in the middle of the series but maintaining the audacity just to try meant that I was able to persevere and keep going past the point when I wanted to give up.

Lesson number five: I need a writing community. I write for people, and writing is so much more fun for me when I get to see how God uses it in your lives. Though writing is a lonely calling and craft, I cannot do it alone.

Lesson number six: One thing that I am constantly exhorted to do is narrow my focus. To write for a particular group of people, kinda like how a special needs parent can really write encouragement for special needs parents in a way that I cannot since I don’t have that same experience (though it could be argued we have a type of special needs with our highly sensitive tendencies). This series reminds me that I like to write to broken people, and I like to create beauty. Maybe one day my focus will become more narrow, but for now, I can start there.

Lesson number seven: Writing daily is a good habit and creates the consistency that a blog needs. So I hope to write once again weekly on this site and become more expected and consistent in my posting.

Lesson number eight: Readers like to be able to trust the writer (me), so when I try something new, I can expect some people may not like it. But I must continue to try new things when I feel lead to do so because that will be the way I shed my-mixed-up-chameleon-ness.

Lesson number nine: Jesus will be found when you seek Him with your whole heart, even though it is really Him seeking you.

Lesson number ten: I tend to write about similar things over and over again. ie, Last year’s Looking in the True Mirror versus this year’s Mirrors. I hope to you, the reader, that it is still engaging and not boring!

Lesson number eleven: A true calling feels like fun not work, but still takes tenacity to finish the race well.

Lesson number twelve: To offer others God’s beauty, I need only be myself and allow God to shine through the way God has gifted me. My writing does not have to imitate someone else’s for it to offer God’s beauty.

Lesson number thirteen: I have nothing to offer if I don’t hang out with God first.

Lesson number fourteen: All things on this earth point to something in the Kingdom. I need to get close and personal and stare at the earthly thing until I see through it into the Kingdom thing that it is.

Lesson number fifteen: Sometime it takes time to understand deep things, so give people time to process depth.

Lesson number sixteen: The Word is alive!

Lesson number seventeen: It takes courage to be the you that you were created to be!

Lesson number eighteen: Following Jesus takes a bit of your own unconventionality. I will probably have to let go of some things I’ve tried holding onto in order to say yes to Him and the plan He has for me.

Lesson number nineteen: Laughter is good medicine. I need to offer it’s lightheartedness alongside my depth and laugh more, so I will keep singing into my fake microphones and remember these silly moments are gifts from God in a weary world.

Linking with Crystal Stine and Emily Freeman.