On writing

Found this today on Max Lucado's website and just had to share. So beautiful and inspiring to a writer who wants to be all he says we need to be. Some of my favorite excerpts:

They also wrote with their lives first. They lived the message before they scribed it. ... He [Paul] responded to a real world with real words. Let’s do the same.

Let your life be your first draft. Shouldn’t Christian writers be Christian writers? Love grumpy neighbors. Feed hungry people. Help a struggling church. Pay your bills, your dues, and attention to your spouse. You’ll never write better than you live.

And:

And isn’t that our aim? The best book possible? We need good books. We need your best book. Don’t give up. Be stubborn with your standard. Stay faithful in prayer. Don’t begrudge the hard work. Peter De Vries said, “I write well when I’m inspired and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.”

A framed quote greets me each time I sit at my desk. “You wanna write? Put your butt in that chair and sit there a long, long time.” Writing is not glamorous work.
But it is a noble work.

There is a single mother who, tonight, is utterly exhausted. Three kids and long hours have taken their toll. She keeps a book on her bedside. She has only a few moments to read. She just needs a word, a phrase, a refined sentence to lift her heart. Would you write it?

Tomorrow a businessman will follow his daily routine. He will turn from the numbers on his screen to the words on a blog. He doesn’t need much, just an anchor-point, a reminder. Would you write it?

A teenager is looking for a book. Her friends fill their minds with stories of vampires, magicians, and goblins, but she wants more. She wants truth, creative truth. She wants hope. Hope on a page. Will you give it to her?

We need you to do this. We need your best work and it is work. But it is a valued work. A worthwhile work. A holy work. May you do such a work.

May you, like John, depict the heavens. May you, like Paul, love the churches. May you, like John, connect with a Theophilus in your world. May you pick up their pens and write for the soul.