Part of my walk with the Lord has been writing. I write all the time, in many different media. Text messages, emails, blogging, and hand writing in my journal. I write out the Bible daily – on good days – and that experience has been such that I see God called me to it; revealing it to me!

Writing Out God’s Word

The reason I began writing our scripture is different than why I am doing it now. I had set out to create a unique birthday present for my oldest son; a hand written copy of the Gospel of John.

John’s gospel has been so precious to me. I’ve read it over and over again. I’ve studied in small groups. I’ve read books about it. This passage from John’s gospel,

All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

John 14:25-26 NIV 1984

Has been a promise that God has kept over and over for me. Back in the early days of searching and listening to him. Naively believing that I could read his word on my own, and know him, this was my assurance that I was connecting with a living and active God who loved me. I’m 61 now. At what point did I decide that I know all about God now, and don’t need anyone to hold my hand? I might just have realized that I’ve thought that the day would one day come maybe. I’ve had many mentors. I’ve had many doubters pour their doubt into me, and I’ve turned each and every time to God, and He’s never let me down. He’s always kept that promise there.

The context there is Jesus speaking to his disciples. He began to prepare them for his physical departure. Its heartbreaking how they held on to his physical presence. Who could blame them. Being weaned is one of the hardest things to go through, and even harder to watch the natural creation kick the little birds out of the nest. But gentle Father God did not, would not, will never… leave YOU alone!

They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Acts 1:10-11 NIV 2011

I’ve only known God by His Holy Spirit! But one of my most common prayers involves me closing my eyes and imagining going into his physical presence. First I get to the outer doors of heaven… fall against them, and pound on them! They always open!

Then I run down the hall, into His Throne room, and run headlong into the folds of his robe. He’s larger than me. He’s huge, I’m a little creature, that easily gets lost in the forest of His robes surrounding me. And I pour out my heart in tears, and his hand comforts me. I’m safe there. I am welcome there. There is no right way, no wrong way. Nobody to judge my way of coming to him, for I am there by the blood of Jesus Christ my savior and Lord.

I’m pretty far off topic its seems. But really I’m not. I want you to know how special this book, the Bible, is to me. Its his word that has been preserved for me, brought to me, to bring me the Good News of who God is, and that he really loves me. Even thought I’m tempted to say I don’t need any other human being, that’s not true either. God has designed us to be part of his family, we are built into him, into His Body – His Church. We know the father through being part of His Body. Bonhoeffer explains this so well in Life Together.

But for the sake of a certain young man I’m looking back at myself at the young age of 16 years old. Reaching out to God, needing him to take the healm of my little insignificant ship. When you experience his Holy Spirit, it is undeniable!

And that’s what happened, that’s what always happen when I spend time in his word. But when I wrote out his word, to make that birthday present I was so wonderfully surprised! Looking back I might have naively or even arrogantly have been heard to say that I’d read and studied that particular book so much, that there was no more to learn… having mined its depths LOL… but what I found out was something quite different.

My goal was to reproduce a readable, non-distracting copy of John’s gospel for my son to cherish. Non-distracting in the sense that my handwriting was to be flawless, not haggard, and that I was true to the spelling and sentence structure, as well as punctuation being accurately transferred. So, all of that attention to the mechanical aspects of transcribing… you’d be inclined to think that the subject matter would just slip by. But I was wrong – and you’re wrong LOL if you thought so – because what I discovered is that I would be given insight into these scriptures! Its been proof that you can’t play with fire and not get burned!

I’d love to know more about this from university study types. But I’ve since gone on to reading the Bible this way as a preferred means. I also listen to the audio version available in various venues.

John 14:26 comes to mind here, again, because I’ve found that scripture I’ve written out, returns to my mind! That counselor, His Holy Spirit, brings reminds me of what I read! I am then able to meditate on it while I’m driving, or cleaning my kitchen, or washing my truck… and then I can go back and apply study tools like the Blue Letter Bible, commentaries, etc..

I also use different versions of the Bible as my primary reference. For example, I wrote out a few books of the Bible for my young grandchildren using the New Living Translation. Each translation.

Journaling

The worry for all of us is the same. What if somebody reads what I wrote?!?! They’ll see the silly things I’m worried about, the terrible things I do, and hear all about the folks I hate, and who I have a crush on… although my wife Cheryl already knows I’m gagga about her, so no secrets there LOL . . . not to mention that very different from copying out scripture, the attention to form, spelling, punctuation… sentence structure… all needs to be left out. The primary need being FLOW of thought to the page. Its like a prayer for me at times, because I let God read my journal LOL. But I also can’t help it, at times I’ll be writing with someone on my mind. Think of how differently you’d tell a recent event given the different audiences. How you would tell your close buddy, how you would tell your Mom or Dad, how you might describe things to somebody who’d busy and hasn’t got time for this LOL (they are rarely my muse) For me it’s a person I’m praying for, and have a burden. Like today I’m praying for a young man who’s preparing to go on a mission trip. I’m writing this to him! But maybe he’ll never read this. In the meantime I’ve got a record of my heart about these things of which I write today. I myself went on a mission’s trip as a young man of about 26 years of age. I drew little sketches of things, recorded the names of folks. Little Spanish phrases. A couple of song lyrics in Spanish that the locals had taught me. And in real time the curious fact that every time I saw a young child there in Guatemala, I burst into tears. Where was this emotion coming from? What did it mean? Well, by the end of the trip I knew, because God told me. “These are my little children, and I care for them. They are safe in my hands” I’d come to that third world country with the attitude of pitying them. I was frightened within their harsh reality. The difference was intense! I still have that little book!

Over and over again through-out my life I’ll go back and read my journal(s) and find stuff that I at times don’t remember even writing. But at other times a curious idea is there, that I want to pursue and meditate on in more detail. Like the time I was journaling about being frustrated with life not going as planned or hoped. I’d written: God is my only Obstacle. When I went to discuss this with various people in my life at the time, they were offended that I’d call God names, for one example. But I have thought about it ever since. I looked at what I meant by “obstacle” something that completely blocks your way from going forward. BUT if I believed that I was being obedient to God, trying to do what he’d called me to do… and I wasn’t getting anywhere… if God be for me, who could be against me? Only God can impede God’s plan. But why would he? One of my favourite stories then and now is Balaam and his donkey being stopped by the sword wielding angel! (see Numbers 22)

Writing a Book

Then there’s another slightly different expression of my writing. I read a book or two… one of them being a book by a writing coach named Anne Lamott, “Bird By Bird”

Each time I read (I actually listen to is as an audiobook) I am newly inspired to write a book. I explored for the first-time writing fiction a couple years back. I’d considered fiction to be a useless sort of genre. Why bother with make believe? Until I tried it! There’s Anne’s whole book to quote here… but I will not do so… but two things she suggests, at least, are what I did… I keep a writing idea notebook with me, and when I get an idea, I get it out and scribble down the idea. When I sat down to write in an undisturbed time of day – 5:oo am on a Saturday – I then went through my ideas and chose one. The purpose of doing so this one particular morning was to practice writing!

The idea was simple. I am in a waiting room, and there is one other person there who isn’t paying attention to me. I then applied the various writing rules. Like telling the truth. I described the waiting room: the chairs, the carpet, the type of office, the temperature of the room… where the receptionist was, what I was wearing, what he was wearing… and etc. I wrote out about 8 pages without a break… then my wife came down stairs having woken from her slumber. So, end of writing for the day…

I was silly, I was imaginative, I was spontaneous, and I got lost in the moment. I stayed away from patt common ways of describing things and instead used my own words…

When I read it to my wife a curiuos thing happened. ON about page 6 I burst into uncontrollable tears. Unexpected emotion that wasn’t even present when I was writing it. My wife was wrapped in her attention, and liked my story… she usually gets bored and asks how long this is going to take… as I looked for reasons for the emotion, I realized that this other man was the younger me, who needed to have a talk with the older me… the younger – predivorced guy that I was… but also he was/is my son, who needs to talk about what happened to his family, his father and mother, when he was too young and closely involved to realize things that as an adult he now would see differently.

In my story none of that conversation happened, but a realization of a pending conversation is what DID happen.

This has been called automatic writing by some. Where you get so lost in your writing that it is flowing directly from your unconscious mind to the page.

That’s when I realize that – in a way – there is really no such thing as fiction. That the only thing we can write about is what we have known! Its a revelation of what’s going on inside our head.