Keep Going

I almost stopped writing yesterday. I was ready to shut down the blog, delete Microsoft word, and close the laptop. When I started this blog, I had no plans for what it would become. I started it as a way to keep friends and family in the loop of what was happening while I was travelling abroad. That was in 2017. Since then, it’s morphed into a place of honest reflection and seeking. And I love writing, I really do. But recently, it’s felt like a part of me that I haven’t been able to reach.

I see other people writing books, getting noticed, and impacting their readers’ lives, and I yearn for that. To be recognized for the work that I’m putting in. To know that the soft secret parts of my heart I’m pouring out onto these pages isn’t for nothing. And I think we all feel that way when it comes to something we’re passionate about. We want to know that what we’re doing is worthy and worth it…because then maybe we are too.

This happens a lot when we misplace the source of our worth. If we find it seeking outside validation or the praises of man, we’ll always come up empty. Because the recognition of man is fickle at best. It can never fill us up and shouldn’t be what drives us to keep going. We’ve been given unique gifts and talents from the Lord that we get to use in our lives. He didn’t give us those giftings so that we could garner praise and acolytes for ourselves. He gave them to us so we could honour and glorify him, pointing others towards his love and mercy.

I had gotten so focused on my follower count and engagement numbers that I’d lost track of why I’d started writing in the first place. My goal was never to become famous; it was to show God’s steadfast love and provision for us. Even if only one person read the post I published, that was okay because maybe that one person was who God had brought there to read those words that day. Making a difference in one person’s life is as wonderful and important as impacting thousands of people.

We all have influence; it doesn’t matter if it’s one person or one million people. We all can use our God-given gifts to impact the world around us. But the quickest way to kill that dream and burn our passion out is by comparing ourselves to those around us. We need to stay focused on our lane and the race we’ve been given to run. Someone else’s success doesn’t mean that you’re failing. Things start to shift when we stop seeing life as a competition and start seeing it as a collaboration. We start to see beauty all around us and feel the life being poured back into us because we’re no longer worshiping at the altar of human validation. Let’s take our focus off of the things of the world and shift it upwards towards the Lord.