Ernest Hemingway famously said that the problem with completing his classic novel A Farewell to Arms was “getting the words right.” The sentiment resonates with every writer once in a while. Sometimes the words don’t come. The blank page mocks. The perfect phrase dances away, teasing and frustrating from the edge of consciousness. Creativity feels, if only briefly, like some kind of parlor trick we’ve forgotten how to perform.
For writers who have dedicated their craft to the Lord, getting the words right takes on an added dimension of responsibility. A clever word or an entertaining idea is good for a moment’s amusement, but if my works show my faith, the adequate conveyance of thoughts occasionally becomes a matter of eternal significance. There are only two ways I know to handle a block: write through it or accept paralysis, and both options are painful in different ways. What a choice – churn out subpar efforts for the sake of having something to revise, or suffer the pangs of an ignored calling!
Yet it is the inadequacy of those early drafts and the urgency of that calling which encourage me, removing the focus on getting the words right and reminding me what a great God I serve. If that sense came from my own mind, its value would be as fleeting as the momentary amusement of cleverness. He isn’t asking me to scrape the bottom of anything I have, but to tap into the blessings He supplies. When my thoughts dwell on getting the words right, 1 Corinthians 4:20 charges me to set my sights higher: “For the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power.”
What a relief it is to accept that no one can frustrate the Lord’s plans. Because His power is made perfect in weakness, there are seeds of miracles in our willingness, participation, and surrender. One plants, another waters, but God causes the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6). The burden of eternal significance is not mine or yours to shoulder. The outcome He intends will be accomplished on His power, not ours, alleviating the pressure of getting the words right and allowing us to echo Psalm 45:1, saying, “My heart overflows with a good theme; I address my verses to the King; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.”
