I am from a ridiculously small town. Population 666. Seriously.
In said small town it is quite humorous what happens whenever there is a fire in town. First of all the town whistle blows. If I remember correctly over 4 blows of the sacred whistle lets us know that the fire is out of town. Under 4 means that the traffic in town is about to pick up.
One volunteer fireman on his way out to put out the fire will stop for a brief moment and write on a huge blackboard who the unlucky sap is that is experiencing an unwanted fire. Knowing this ritual somewhere around 650 people, like lemmings, get in their vehicles (mostly big trucks with Old Dixie hanging from the back) and get the low down on the fire.
Then about 200 of those 650 attempt to slyly drive out to wherever the fire is. We (yeah, I confess I used to do this too), try to pretend that we are only going to the gas station…but everybody is in on the secret. We are all curious about the fire.
Sad thing is nobody had visited this poor sap UNTIL his house burns down. Why is that?
We like a good car crash. That is why sober and adjusted people only watch NASCAR for the wrecks. And non-Canadians only watch hockey for the fights. Controversy, turmoil, fires, etc. creates traffic.
The same thing is true in the world of blogging. And that frustrates me to no end. It frustrates me because every writer wants people to read what he/she writes. Yeah, I love writing. But I also want to write well and write in a way that honors Christ and makes Him the only boast of this generation.
That is why it frustrates me whenever those that stir up controversy get massive traffic and meanwhile I plod along slowly, keep writing, and slowly gain traffic. If this post would have Driscoll, Calvinism, SBC, Alcohol, or Homosexuality, or some sort of end times jargon in the title I guarantee it would have had a good amount of traffic. But if it’s something about the excellencies of Jesus it will get a minimum amount of traffic.
And I could write about that stuff. I do have opinions on many of these things. Problem is I do not want to. At the end of the day I want to stand before the Lord and be able to say that I wrote for His glory and not blog traffic. Or at least I want to want that.
One thing that guides my writing and social media involvement is Proverbs 26:17, “Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears”. I could enter into many of these quarrels but it would end up biting me in the end.
But this causes a small conundrum for me…And I’ll share that one later…
