Collaborate with the Creator
The LORD invites His children into a creative collaboration with Him. It started when God asked Adam to name all of the animals:
“Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.” (Genesis 2:19)
God didn’t need Adam to name the animals. Yet, He chose to ask Adam for his words. God doesn’t need us either to fulfill His purposes for His creation, yet, like God did with Adam, He invites us into a creative collaboration with Him. The Lord chooses to ask us for our words.
As a writer, you say YES to His invitation to create with Him each time you show up at the blank page in anticipation of meeting Him there. When you approach your writing from a posture of collaborating with the Lord, your creative possibilities are endless. That doesn’t mean that writing is easy or that you write only when inspiration hits. It DOES mean that God will continue to meet you at the blank page to collaborate with you!
4 Tips for Showing Up at the Blank Page
Schedule it. Put it on the calendar and mark it as a writing date with the Lord. Grab a cup of coffee, tea, or water and make time for meeting with Him at the blank page. It doesn’t need to be an hour. Maybe for you, in this season, it is 10 minutes three times a week. Start there.
Set a timer. Before you start writing, start a timer for 10, 15, or 20 minutes. Then start writing and KEEP writing until the timer goes off.
Pray. Sometimes we literally get in our head about prayer. It doesn’t need to be fancy and use “Ye” and “Thou” language. You don’t even need to be eloquent about your conversation with God. Just be yourself. I often pray something like this: “Lord, I’m gonna need you to give me the words to write because I have no idea what to say. I trust that you will do that because you are faithful.” I didn’t even use proper English. (Gasp.) You know what though. God still meets me at the blank page.
Celebrate the progress. If you write one really amazing sentence or process part of a heavy moment in your writing time with Him, celebrate that! Of course, you can set word count goals and meet or exceed them. However, celebrate the small steps forward in your writing, too. Some days the progress worth celebrating is the act of showing up to write with Him.
Are you ready to embrace your identity as a writer more fully and make progress on your writing dreams?
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