Open for Business (After a Temporary Stop)
It’s hard for me to believe it’s been over one month since I hung a Shop Closed (Temporarily) sign on this website. I needed to do some heart work and deal with some insecurities, pride, and comparison issues. Before taking a break, on some days I found myself frustrated at a lack of blog progress, while other days I found myself overly proud at the success of a post. Most days I found myself a wee bit too obsessed with numbers, traffic, and what others thought of me and my writing.
While I do want to help others, and think many posts have, I committed the sin of being more concerned with the approval of man than serving Christ. Galatians 1:10 says, "For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a ‘servant’ of Christ.” Paul’s words are some of my favorite in the whole Bible, and this passage is a verse I pray often for myself and for my children.
Prior to hitting the pause button, I got caught up in the tyranny of the urgent with writing blog posts. Preachers talk about the pressure that starts as soon as you finish preaching a sermon on Sunday since the next Sunday is less than one week away and another sermon is due. While in no way do I compare the writing of a blog post with a Sunday sermon, I also got caught up in the pressure of writing. As soon as you hit publish on a blog post, you need to start thinking about the next post, and the one after that and the one after that.
It’s been a good month, but (I think) I’m ready to start back up again. I miss writing and I started to get used to not writing. I don’t want the habit of writing to die.
I’ve been so encouraged by the kind words of many friends over these five weeks. My friend Wes shared the most helpful counsel: "sometimes the ground needs to lie fallow.” I know the word fallow from passages like Hosea 10:12 (Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.), but I had to look “fallow" up to see what it really means.
Per Dictionary.Com, the word fallow means
"plowed and harrowed but left unsown for a period in order to restore its fertility as part of a crop rotation or to avoid surplus production: incentives for farmers to let the land lie fallow in order to reduce grain surpluses.”
Since February 18th, I’ve walked through a season where the field was left unsown for a period to time in order to restore my fertility (Please don’t take that line out of context!). I am thankful for this season as I believe it helped restore my "writing fertility.”
A few decisions moving forward:
Wellness: I need to get back to exercising with others in community. As much as I HATE it at times, I know I do my best work when I do a better job of stewarding my body and health. The brain works better, I have more energy and I sleep better. All of these contribute to better creativity in writing (as well as better work habits and energy for my family).
Frequency of posts: My frequency will probably drop. I definitely don’t feel the pressure to produce two-three new posts every week. I know this will affect my traffic and the blog experts probably wouldn’t recommend it, but I think part of my Galatians 1:10 issue was wanting to please the experts.
Focus: Do my best to not focus on the numbers. Not looking at numbers of visitors, shares, and likes for one month was really good for me. Hopefully I can keep it up!
Book Proposal: I made some good progress on my book proposal. I will probably test some of the material for the book on the blog. I look forward to telling you more about the book process very soon.
There’s some good stuff coming your way. I am releasing a new version of my 124 Killer Date Night guide, will resume the series on being a discerning reader and I will continue to write primarily about marriage and relationships.
Thanks again for the great support and prayers over the past few weeks. I am more grateful than you can possibly know!
Your Turn:
Read Galatians 1:10. Where are some areas in your life where you choose the approval of man over being a servant of Christ.
Are there any areas of your life where you need to let the soil lie fallow for a season? For instance, some of you worship working out. Is this an idol in your life that can replace intimacy with Christ?