Keep the Lord in Your Writing

I had an epiphany, sitting in Sunday School this weekend: I’m struggling with my novel because I haven’t been reading my scriptures.

Oh, I’ve been reading. Lots of fiction and non-fiction alike, paying attention to how authors use words to tell their stories or convey their facts.

But I have not been reading my scriptures regularly on my own.

And that’s a problem.

Particularly since the novel I’m struggling with is spiritual in nature.

It’s like needing water, standing next to a clear, cold pool of it, and trying to quench my thirst by licking the dew off the leaves.

The Lord reminded the Israelites of this:

When thou has eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.

Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day:

Lest what thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein;

And when they herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou has is multiplied;

Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;

Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;

Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove three, to do three good at thy latter end;

And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine had hath gotten me this wealth.

(Deuteronomy 8:10-17)

As we write the Argumentative Synthesis – or any other bit of writing for that matter – we do enter a kind of great and terrible wilderness, where we’ll encounter not scorpions and drought, but word counts, feedback, writer’s block, difficult research, and varying demands on our time.

It seems counterintuitive to say, “Hey, I need to put my studies aside and do what the Lord has asked me to do,” but we gotta do it. I was hit several times with that thought this Sunday, listening not only to things in class, but things in my heart.

God gave Moses the words to say, as Moses was obedient unto God. He makes us no less a promise.