Writing and Creating

I love writing. 

 

Stories, articles, blogs, essays, poems.  It doesn't really matter what I'm writing.  I enjoy all of it.

 

I never feel more alive than when I am writing.  It feels as though I am doing what I was created to do and I feel satisfied in the very depths of my being.

 

I have been working this evening on a story I'm writing and I've been really interested in the way that I think as I write.  I know what I want to say and I play around with the words until I am happy with them.  I feel confident and creative and I enjoy both the process of writing and the finished piece.

 

I love the feeling of creating new faces and places,  of describing a storyline unfolding and unfurling.  And I love how the characters seem to come alive in my hands.

 

But when it comes to my own life, I often forget that I have the same creative power.  I have the ability to change the way I see myself or what I believe about myself through my words.  I have the power to create new situations or scenarios for myself.  I have the power to alter how I see myself and how I value myself.  I have the power to decide what or who I will believe about myself. 

 

I have the power to create or destroy, to build up, or to tear down.   

 

Proverbs says,

"Words kill, words give life; they're either poison or fruit - you choose."

[Proverbs 18:21 MSG]

 

So often I don't choose.  I forget that I have this creative power over my own life and, especially, over my own thoughts.  I feel as though I drift along through life, as a passive tourist, rather than as an active participant.

 

But Paul writes about the need for us to be active in constructing our identity and our sense of self and making sure that what we believe about ourselves measures up with what God says about us:

"The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.  On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.  We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

 

[2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV]

 

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.

 

It is with God's word that we demolish the arguments and lies we believe about ourselves: I am not worthless, I am not abandoned, I am not forgotten or forsaken, I am forgiven, I am loved, I am chosen, I am blessed, I am delighted in.

 

And we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

 

If I only let myself believe the things that God says about me, I would have a deep sense of peace and security about who I am.

 

But we have to choose.  We have to be active in writing and creating our identity.  In the same way that a writer has to be active for the characters to live and for the story to unfold.