To enjoy your work is a gift from God. But what if you let your work become a greater joy or a greater focus than God Himself? 

Hi. I’m in this photo and I don’t like it. God recently showed me something I didn’t want to see. I didn’t like it because He showed me where I was wrong. It made me upset, irritated to the point I didn’t even want to write this post. I still don’t like it but I know I need to see it and I need to let Him work on me in it. 

I write Christian romance fiction. I’m in the middle of writing a story now and felt like I was losing my focus on it but I couldn’t tell how exactly. I was still really excited about the story, the characters, the part I was at. It was actually one of the parts of the story that I was most looking forward to. If not the most. 

And once I actually got up to that point, I didn’t want to write it anymore. I was scared of it. I felt like I was losing the story even though it was still moving along the way I intended it to. It didn’t feel stilted or forced exactly and I couldn’t pinpoint what it was that needed to be changed. 

God wasn’t my focus. 

Before realizing this, I had a thought running through my head where I asked Him what to do. And I remembered another blog post I have that asks this exact question so I went and reread it hoping it might help. It did. It hurt. Because there’s a part in it that reminds us that our greatest work is spreading the Gospel. It’s working for God, not ourselves. 

I lost that focus. I lost the fact that I wanted to write real characters with real relationships with God. I’d minimized His part in the story to quick, forced prayers from my characters in moments of fear or uncertainty. He wasn’t anywhere to be found other than that. My characters didn’t have real relationships with Him. What was I showing? That God is a help line? He is. He’s our greatest help. But He’s more than that too. He’s our greatest friend. Our greatest love. Our greatest Father. Greatest cheerleader. Even when that cheering doesn’t make us feel good. 

I’m still in the first draft of this story, but I can already tell where some major edits need to happen. In my own life too. My writing is a reflection of me and so if my characters aren’t reflecting God, am I? 

My Bible study time with Him has gotten pretty stale over the last little bit too and I thought it was just because I’d been busy and then was getting over a cold so I just wasn’t feeling great. I just wasn’t focused. But I’d moved away from Him without realizing it. I’d stopped seeking Him and was just marking off a to-do. 

With as much as He’s done for me, He deserves so much more of me than that. He deserves my whole heart. My whole life. Not the spare minutes I can toss together. I wasn’t inviting Him into my life anymore. I was just meeting for book club. 

Maybe you can relate with me. Maybe you wanted to stop reading this a while ago because you also saw yourself in this picture and didn’t like it. Welcome. The conviction hurts. I’m not a fan personally. But I also know God has good intentions with it. The best. He’s not going to show me what’s wrong and then leave me to pick up the pieces. He’s diagnosing a problem so He can work on it. So He can make me better. More like Him. 

I’m not looking forward to this process but I am looking forward to the result of being closer with Him again. 

I want to seek Him for Him. Not just for a personal goal outside of Him that I need His help on. He’s more than my Provider, my Guide, my Way-maker. He is all of those things, absolutely, and they’re things I’m learning to trust Him more for. But He’s also my Father, my Friend. He calls me His bride. Am I seeking Him like His bride? Like His friend? Like His daughter? 

I’ve stopped seeking to be closer with Him and I can feel that emptiness. That staleness in seeking anything else. He alone satisfies. Not even my greatest earthly joys can fulfill me apart from my God. 

I love writing. And I don’t think He’s telling me to put it down entirely and forget about it. But it’s nothing without God who gave me that love. I love art. But it’s nothing without God. I love music. But even my favorite songs can’t fill me like God can when I let Him. All of these things are gifts from God to be enjoyed, but to enjoy them as gifts from God. To let our love for His gifts cause us to love Him better. 

I want to take a minute to pray for anyone reading this post who relates a little too hard to it. This includes me. 

Father, thank You for showing us when we’re wrong. For loving us enough to not just let us be wrong and happy, but to show us how to be better, even if it upsets us in the process. Please help us to seek You and You alone. Help us to believe the truth that You are better and that nothing else can satisfy us like You can. Help us not to fall into idolatry, whether in our work, finances, other people, or anything else. You are God alone. Help us to serve You as God alone and to seek you as God alone. You deserve so much more than we could ever give, but help us, Lord, to give what we can. Help us to love You more like You love us. To seek You and serve You wholeheartedly. 

Amen