It’s Monday morning. I’m at my desk. And the clock reads 9:00 AM. Designated writing time.
I read through a few articles, a few books, I look through some of the random ideas that I’ve had throughout the week. And I start to work on one of them.
And then she whacks me in the back of the head.
The Muse.
The goddess of inspiration.
Articles don’t normally flow this freely. And this is going to be a good one. I’ll likely win an award for most traffic generated by one blog post. Digits will drop off my Alexa rank. Newspapers will call. I might even get a letter from the President.
And so I get to writing. I spend a good portion of my writing time crafting this gem. At least an hour. I have it exactly as I want it. Precisely how the Muse has inspired me to write. It feels good. My points are cogent and powerful. I’m even convinced that they are utterly true.
Then I delete the whole thing.
—
He’s been in the wilderness for forty days now. He’s hungry and he’s tired. His mission is to create a kingdom of glad-hearted worshippers. He’s destined to be King. But it must come through trial. Through suffering. Through death. And then the exaltation.
And then he comes.
The Tempter.
The god of this world.
His solution is simple. It seems so wise. His points are cogent and powerful. To the eyes of any passerby it’d look like the greatest deal ever offered. “You were destined to be King, eh? Here you go. I’ll give you every bit of this, if you fall down and worship me. It’s all yours. The entire kingdom. The world and all of its glory will bow at your feet.” (Russell Moore does a great job of explaining what is at stake here)
Jesus didn’t bite.
And neither should we…
—
Bloggers face the daily temptation of hitting publish too soon and for all the wrong reasons. When an article flows so smoothly, when it feels inspired, and when we believe it is truthful we can far too quickly assume that all of this was from the Spirit.
But is it divisive? Such a piece might be for the most part truthful. It might be well written. It might even be written with the best of intentions. But if it is divisive I’m given pause. Is this from Lady Muse or is this wisdom from above?
Is my goal selfish ambition? Am I hitting publish to further the kingdom of God or my own version of said kingdom? If selfish ambition is in my heart then I have to question whether or not this post is of the Spirit. (James 3:13-18)
Bloggers, let us not assume that the enemy would not seek to hijack our writing ministry. Let us not assume that just because something comes easy and feels like it’s inspired that it necessarily is inspired by the Spirit. Give pause before you publish.
Don’t bite on the tempter’s proposal. Love the Lord and His glory more than the fleeting pleasures of retweets, facebook likes, and heavy blog traffic.
