Okay, over the last perhaps 2-3 weeks, blogging has almost become an addiction. It took my daughters to point that out to me.
It took me work to be addiction-free (of coffee, chocolate, tea, internet addictions etc.) so I am certainly not going to allow myself to slip into another addiction. Because addictions separate you from what is really going on in your soul, they lull you.
So today, I had a serious conversation with God about my blogging. To summarize,
1) I felt God told me to take up blogging during a long walk on the beach at Royan, France on April 10th, 2010. We were enroute to Calais from Bordeaux, had promised Irene we would stop in at one more beach before we left–and believe it or not, took a 50 mile detour to the closest beach after we promised that–which was Royan.
I felt God blessed my promise-keeping because during that late night walk on the beach, he spoke, and kept speaking through that night. Lots of ideas and directives about my writing.
And one was to take up blogging.
I had written a handful of blog posts before that, but couldn’t make myself stick to it. Now, I monetized my blog (as you will notice!!) and the little something everyday that I get from Google and ebuzzing reduces some blog-guilt I feel.
So on April 11th I took up blogging.
2a ) Blogging and my spiritual life.
Blogging actually does wonders for my spiritual life. For starters, it keeps me in touch with it. When I am walking with Christ, and experiencing the river of the Holy Spirit, I have lots of ideas and insights. I could sit down and write six posts at a time (but do not!!)
On the rar-ish occasions when I am in a “What to Write?” mode, I say, “Anita, what’s up with your soul? What’s up with your friendship with Jesus? Has he really said nothing to you all day, taught you nothing?”
Then I know I need to slow down, find out what the impediment might be (frequently sin is the log-jam, but it could also be distraction), remove it, read Scripture, pray, listen to worship music, get back into the force-field, the waterfall of God’s presence and goodness.
When I am “running” from a one-on-one confrontation with God, largely because he may ask me to give up an idol, to revise my life, or repent of something I don’t want to repent of right now, I have an early warning system. No ideas for blog posts which are really close to my heart, or meaty come to me .
2b) Blogging helps me verbalize things. I sometimes discern and apprehend spiritual things wordlessly, as a sense in my spirit. I remember them longer, and they make more of an impression on me if I write them down. And in the process of writing, I think about them, and get new ideas and insight, so that a stray idea is now a full-fledged blog-post/essay.
3 Okay, granted, but why put them on the web?
Because I hope these ideas might be a blessing to other people. Because it is my nature and my calling to communicate my ideas through the medium of writing.
4) Sigh. This takes me to the next subject. If I am writing to be a blessing to people, then I need to find readers.
How? There are two ways of doing this, as there are two ways of doing life. Chariots and horses or the nuclear option
So I need both. I need to pray for God’s blessing on my blog. And I need to do a little every day to increase readership (but not so much that it will encroach on my writing time.)
5) I need to limit my blogging. I am blogging through the Bible, which is a post or two a day, and I also aim to write a general post, on something of interest to Christians.
So I have set a limit of 1 Scripture post, and 1 general post. What if I have ideas for 5 posts? Well, if they are short posts, and I have the time, I will add an additional one. If not, I will make a note of it, and save it for a desert day.
If I come across stray tidbits in my reading to inspire or amuse, I will post them.
