Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated always in her love.
Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman
and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
(Proverbs 5:18-20 ESV)
It may seem like a stretch to compare fulfillment within the sexual intimacy of marriage with blogging. Yet, I do think there is a root issue that motivates both adultery and bad blogging. That root is the failure to be satisfied with the portion that the Lord has given you.
The man that refuses to “drink water from his own cistern” does so because he thinks the water somewhere else is going to taste better and be more fulfilling. He has lost satisfaction in the well that the Lord has given him. He has bought the lie that God is holding out on him and that tasting forbidden fruit will supply what he lacks.
The same principle applies to the blogger that sells out for traffic. Really bad and irresponsible blogging comes from a heart that is not satisfied with its audience. The times when I have hit publish too soon (or when I should have not hit publish at all) came from an inordinate desire to be heard or noticed as opposed to a steady desire to be faithful.
If you have seven followers, and four them are your mom signing in on different accounts, then be joyously content in the portion that the Lord has given you. Be faithful with this little, keep plodding, keep proclaiming, and keep honing your writing skills. If the Lord sees fit he might increase your number of readers. But you could also tick off your mom and lose half your followers. Regardless, your goal is to be faithful. Be joyously content that God has given you the gospel and that you are used by him to articulate it—even if its to one dear soul.
Don’t sell out. Take joy in being faithful and keep on lifting up Christ. Enjoy the ideas that the Lord is giving you. Chew on them. Let them penetrate your own life. Be intoxicated in the gifts that He has given you and not enamored by the gifts that He has given to another dude. Your well is your own to enjoy. So enjoy it regardless of how deep it goes.
