Just like the books that seem to
multiply during the night around here, we’ve been given so many music and
message CD’s through the years, we lose track of when or where they originated. Recently while sorting through them, I found one entitled, "Don’t’
Waste Your Life.”
The CD's accompanying literature suggests we ought to be centering our lives around something other than collecting stuff, retirement, or playing.
Kind
of flies in the face of our culture doesn’t it?
I
haven’t listened to this CD yet, but I don’t think the speaker is talking about
recreation to recharge. I believe he’s speaking to those who would center their
life around playing. Some folks I know use retirement as an opportunity to
serve and minister to others like my friends Dick and Barbara Anderson. And
collecting stuff? It seems fun for a season, but ultimately there comes a day
when someone has to uncollect. And that my friends, is a terrible job.
I
could’ve never imagined twenty years ago that I’d be doing at this point in my
life what I’m about to do in a couple of days. It seems so, I don’t know,
improbable. On Wednesday, while others hold down the homefront, I’m going to be joining the cast and crew of A Season of Miracles as they produce Rusty Whitener’s grace filled baseball story, which
started filming last Saturday.
Dave Moody, the producer, also holds an option on my script for Give My Love to the Chestnut Trees. Somehow, knowing my friend Rusty’s script is being produced
gives me hope that mine, too, will one day go into production.
I’ll
be updating a bit here as I can .
I’ll
take a break from writing the first draft of a novel, which I’m just a few days
away from completing. One of the themes in the novel is perseverance, and I
have to tell you it has taken a greater measure of perseverance to get to this
point in the book than I could’ve ever imagined. In fact, about halfway through, I thought
I’d lost my way. Somehow, through a lot of prayer, God helped me find it again.
By
God’s grace, this makes novel number four, as well as five screenplays I’ve
written in the last few years.
I don’t want to waste my life. I just keep
working, following this call I believe God has for me, even if it all does seem
so improbable. Even when I hear in my head, “What are you doing?” or“Who do you
think you are?”
It’s
true that at times, I don’t feel I know what I’m doing. And for sure, I seem the last person on earth who ought to be doing these things.
I
could make a long list of my disqualifications.
But
when I feel this way, I open up a folder entitled, “Why I Write.” It’s filled with
notes about the reasons I believe I’m called to this path. These entries serve
as a reminder that I didn’t just make all this up. These are God’s plans, even when a sense of inadequacy threatens.
And
yes, it’s scary. Just before the release of “Give My Love to the Chestnut Trees”
a few months ago, I told my family they might have to change their names and
move to another state. I was so afraid of embarrassing them. But, thankfully,
they seem to have weathered the last few months pretty well.
So
listen closely.
He
may be calling to you right now. And it may be to something you never could
have imagined. If He is, don’t miss the journey.
"By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward--to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back. So let's keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us" (Philippians 3:13-15).
"By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward--to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back. So let's keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us" (Philippians 3:13-15).
For
updates on A Season of Miracles production, click here.