#1. It is intrusive to my life of prayer.
The irony here is that this particular post came to mind while in prayer. It happens too often. The quiet of the morning and the stillness of my home, I am praying to the Father, declaring the gospel of the Son, yearning to be filled with the Spirit and simultaneously fighting the all-too-easy ‘hey, that could be a blog post’ crap. This makes me very angry. All accusations are pointed at me in my sinfulness.
“I want to forget myself, be wise in nothing but the cross, live before and unto the LORD, careless towards the approval of man (oh, I should post this).”
There are a dozen comebacks. I hope that you are thinking of them now and confronting what I’ve said with “but…” and “what about…” Well done. Tell me, please. Comment. Challenge my thinking. I need it. Prayer is too important, bro. I am growing weary in fighting a battle that could be eliminated. I am sinful enough to let a web address rob my communion with God. That is painful enough to make me want to bash my MacBook and throw it in the cold Mississippi, or ball up like a baby and cry.
I hope you like my post, hope it gets lots of hits. Crap.
Jesus, please help me.
Praying for you and for myself, brother.
Hey man,
I wonder if you’ll believe this, but the very same thing is happening to me, and I thought about posting about it too. I’m praying, and I’m enjoying it, and I say something or think something to the Father, and I go, “Ooh. That’d make a great blog post.”
I don’t like it either.
It’s something that I think happens with guys who have teaching / preaching gifts (and who like to write). We are more thrilled by proclaiming glorious things than by the glory of those things themselves. We think in terms of how we can minister to others rather than enjoy the good gift ourselves. It comes from (1) a desire to minister to others, and (2, and probably principally) a desire to preach at others and avoid becoming holy ourselves.
But here’s what I’m thinking. I think stopping the blog would be like literally cutting off your hand or plucking out your eye. It’d show you’re serious, but because of the way sin works, it wouldn’t help the issue. You’ll still think about who you can minister that idea to. You’ll think you’ll want to tell Melissa about an insight you had or how you might explain it to Elizabeth. You’ll think about how that would sound great in your next paper or how someone in your Bible study needs to hear that. The desire to minister to people and the fleshly desire to resist the pruning of the flesh will still be there without the blog. Deal with the sin at its root, and not its fruit.
Also, I get that you’re angry, but consider taking out the unwholesome word. It neither edifies nor gives grace, but actually distracts from your legitimate anger and pushes it over into sin.
Love you, brother.
I used to run more of a “Christian blog,” then I decided that I wasn’t going to use my blog mainly as a chronicling of my sanctification. I wasn’t really going to evangelize on it, and I decided to totally stop praying on my blog (and Twitter, and Facebook).
Now, I post about the stuff that interests more than my brain. Sometimes it’s a theological point, a political one, a good quote of a book I’m reading, or it’s something “shallow” like a video game I’m enjoying, an 80s movie I used to like, a piece of music, or whatever.
In fact, I used to have two blog categories: “Godward” and “Manward.” I’ve since kind of… grown out of that? I now have, “Getting Things Done” and “beatles” and “dinner questions”. Maybe it’s me backsliding. I don’t know.
I’d like to see you tap more into the side that you blogged about in our sword fight. I want to hear about the Cardinals, about The Office, about LIFE. And I want to hear about them even without a biblical reference, if you don’t have one.
I know that these things are transient and passing away, but I think that the proportion of “holy posts” vs. “life posts” *might* be why you’re feeling burnt out. Up to now, your blog has mainly been about spiritual things, so you’re starting to relate your spirituality to blogging. Praying makes you think about blogging. That should tell you that you ought to blog about other things you want to share.
Granted, this is coming from the guy whose blogging lately has been pathetic. But, I know the blogs I enjoy the most are people who write about more of what they’re enjoying.
Yes, our highest duty is enjoying God, but enjoy God through His creation, and it’s okay for guys like us who tend to explicitly link everything to God over and over again to just, y’know, eat our food with smiles on our faces and and a HEARTS full of thanks with a MOUTHS full of chicken wings and beer.
I don’t know. Hope that helps, Bro.
Blech, horrible last line (with errors). What I was trying to say is, I don’t have to express, “The Lord is good to give us tastebuds to enjoy our food!” after every bite of a delicious dinner in order for my enjoyment to be a spiritual enjoyment (besides, if Edwards is right, all matter is ultimately spiritual anyway). Genuine, heartfelt gratitude at the start of the meal should guard us from the idolatry of food after we dig in without requiring us to consciously engage our thoughts toward God throughout the meal.
Are you getting what I’m saying?
For example, I know that you do more than read theology. I know you have a life that has many delights and joys that are outside the IMMEDIATE business of exegesis (though we both know our exegesis influences everything in our lives). Yet, the blog is mainly about exegesis, hence you’ve probably put “Christian Blog” in quotations for a reason.
But come on. You watch Youtube and see funny things on it, too. Why not share it? Enjoying the Olympics? Tell us why the luge is awesome. See a funny episode of The Office? Make us laugh.
Your Reason #2 does shed light on Reason #1, though. It’s the difference between being a Christian blogger and having a Christian blog. And I think I’ve been encouraging you to be a Christian blogger.