Posted on by Abe Austin

Sacrifice and Consecration- Personal Example

I shared at the end of my last study series about a fear I once had. This fear was that if I really tried to follow God, sooner or later He was going to ask me to sacrifice my creativity. He was going to point to all those silly, little stories that I loved to write and say “Enough of that childish stuff, you need to dedicate yourself to some real work now.”

That was a hard thing to face, because I had always considered my creativity to be an essential part of me. Surrendering it would feel like denying a core of who I am. As I spoke with God about these fears, He assured me that He had no intentions to make me sacrifice my creativity. In fact He pointed out that He is an extremely creative being Himself, and that I feel these creative longings because I am His son.

And then He did a most beautiful thing. He asked if I would allow Him to help me with my creativity. He asked if I would be willing to make a joint effort on the stories I write, one where I use my passion to communicate His messages. After all, why can’t a writer ask God’s advice on where a plot should go, or what a story’s theme should be?

So God didn’t take my stories away from me…but He did change them. And I have not sacrificed my creativity…but I have consecrated it.

And ever since that moment my writing has had so much more purpose, and my stories are full of so much more heart. When I write, I feel so much more enriched and complete. I feel that I am doing what I love, and that in so doing I am giving glory to God.

Posted on by Abe Austin

That They Might Have Joy- Personal Example #2

One of the motivations for this study was that I have been feeling an increase of joy over the past year and wanted to examine the reasons why. As I’ve considered the matter I have identified three basic reasons. Today I’ll discuss the second.

I’ve always been fascinated by the act of writing. I wrote stories all through my teenage years, I loved crafting essays in college, and even in my careers as a software development I do a form of writing every day. Surprisingly, though, I never thought of myself as “called” to write until a year-and-a-half ago.

March of 2018 I was attending a spiritual retreat up in the mountains where I had a lot of pondering and prayer. God spoke to my heart with many sacred messages, and one of them was an invitation to take my old hobby and make it a spiritual vocation.

I distinctly felt that God took pleasure in my writing. The thought occurred to me that He is a supremely creative being, and my own desire for creativity is a sign of my being His son. It was time to start taking that gift seriously.

As a result I began a blog where I examine the principles of storytelling and publish short stories. I also began working in earnest on a novel, one which communicates the deepest feelings of my heart. And last of all I began this second spiritual blog six months ago.

My skills still have a long way to go, but the fact is I am already so much more fulfilled by doing that which I feel was I was born to do. If what I write is good for anyone else, that is delightful. But already it is enough that what I write is good for me.