God Wants More for Your Writing…Do You?

by Erin Ensinger

When I asked ABH President Fran Geiger Joslin to speak to my freelance writing class at Cairn University in 2017, she challenged me to think twice about whether I really wanted her input. She never gives the typical advice on topics such as how to get published, make a full-time living as a freelance writer, or market work on social media. Her message encompasses something far more simple yet far more earth-shattering.

Fran’s message? Write to change just one person’s life. Write to advance Christ’s kingdom.

Why hadn’t I thought of that? Why had I never encouraged my students in this way?

Somewhere between the campfire services of my youth, where I yielded my whole life to God, and the mediocrities of my suburban Philadelphia life, my eternal perspective blurred.

Yes, Lord, I’ll go to Africa, Kosovo, Haiti, anywhere. I’ll do anything you ask, I promised in my teens and twenties.

But in my thirties, that “anything” started to look a little different.

Will you give up the possibility of full-time teaching and writing to stay home with an infant and toddler?

Oh boy. Well, I never really considered myself a kid person, but since you asked, I’ll give it my best shot.

Will you focus on worshipping me instead of worrying so much about doing things for me?

Hmmm, since you gave me two kids who are allergic to sleep, it’s going to be a little tough to squeeze you in, but I’ll see what I can do.

Those “anythings” kept me so busy I wondered if I had only made up a third “anything” whispering beneath the frantic din of life with my two-under-two.

Write. Use this gift I gave you. Stop making it so complicated. Start with the opportunities right in front of you.

For years I struggled with a haunting fear that if I took my writing seriously, it might become an idol in my life. Of course God would require me to sacrifice the thing I love most, right? Isn’t that how it worked for Abraham with Isaac?  

Enough of crippling guilt! I took the plunge. I stopped dreaming of becoming a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and started writing for my local newspaper, academic conferences, book review websites—anything and everything that seemed within reach.

These somewhat scattered efforts yielded the pleasurable adrenaline rush of seeing my words, my name, in print. Like experiencing a runner’s high, I basked in the glow until it inevitably faded. A rush. Is that really all I sought from this writing life?

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God…” (Matthew 6:33)

I sang the song to my girls on countless sleepless nights, but when Fran spoke to my writing class, I realized I was the one who had fallen asleep.

One groggy morning I flipped through Jennie Allen’s book Anything looking for something besides coffee to sustain me through the day. These words beckoned from the page: “And God is saying, Look up. This is going fast. Your life here is barely a breath. There is more, way more,” (2011, 71).

More than my name at the top of an article. More than a check in the mail. More than a “well done” from an editor. My coffee grew cold in the mug as I stared unseeing out the window, pondering the new dreams beginning to unfold for my writing. Dreams of no longer conforming to the writing and publishing patterns of this world. Dreams of writing to make God famous, to heal one heart. Dreams of storing up treasure in heaven even if I never earned one cent on earth.

With the baby still blessedly sleeping, I grabbed my computer and dashed off an email to Fran. I told her I didn’t know how her words impacted my students, but I for one would never think about writing the same way. Could she help me find a way to write for the kingdom? And so my journey of writing and editing with ABH began.

As a staff writer now for ABH, I’ve spent the last six years wrestling with the “more” God might want for my writing. I knew from the first that ABH offered no promise of fortune and fame; I realized later that God also never promised to save multitudes through my writing. He may want to touch just one, and I need to be okay with that.

Our great God is also the God of the widow’s mite, the mustard seed, the little boy’s little lunch. He’s the heartbroken father lavishing all he has on one prodigal son. I can’t simply replace earthly ambition with spiritual ambition and pretend I am writing for the kingdom. Each day I must take my eyes off myself and release my work into his hands. Each day I must pray he distributes the loaves as he sees fit and feeds whomever he chooses with them.  

As my former writing dreams fade, my soul awakens to a grander prospect. How about you? What if God wants more for your writing than you ever dared dream? Will you bring a mighty God the small offering of your writing? And will you trust him whether he heals one hurting heart or multiplies your offering to the multitudes?