The Undiscovered Country

Never Complain . . .

About being bored, or out of stuff to do.

I learned that at an early age. I once told my mom that I was bored, and she eagerly eliminated that boredom by giving me chores to last at least the rest of the day.

Same goes for my job. I tell my boss I’m out of work, and my desk is soon drowning in incomplete projects.

My last entry I complained about how my motivation and desire to write had waned, and that no idea seemed good enough to start, let alone finish.

I received this email today:

Hi Andra,
I help coordinate a team of devotional writers who periodically (and hopefully more frequently in 2018!) write short devotions to encourage faith development and unity at Legacy. As I was pulling together information for next year's Lenten Devotions, your name came to mind. I recalled that writing was a passion of yours and wondered if you might want to help out with the next round of devotions?

Here's how it typically works:

I obtain Bible focus/sermon planning information from pastoral staff
I develop Scripture focus for devotions (number of devotions vary-for example we usually have 33 Lenten Devotions about 5/each week of Lent) and create document for writing assignments
Writer's Group is invited to sign up for specific devotions
Devotions are written by individual writers and submitted for review and grammatical edit
I submit entire project to JoAnn for design and printing
Attached are some guidelines that might answer some initial questions, but feel free to let me know what questions you have. Does this sound like something you'd enjoy?

Of course I agreed, even though I haven’t written devotionals in a while.

I had to chuckle, though, because the opportunity showing up right after my last entry seemed too coincidental.

I’m reminded of a short conversation between Sherlock and his older brother, Mycroft from the BBC series “Sherlock.”

Mycroft asked Sherlock, “What did I tell you about coincidences?”

“The universe is rarely so lazy.”

I replace “universe” with “God,” when coincidences like this happen. Today I was also reminded of how my mom would invariably give me something to do when I was bored.

I think God heard my complaint and thought, “She’s not writing, and not liking not writing, so I need to give her something to write about. Here you go.”

I’ve heard it said that if we ask God for patience, he will place us in circumstances that teach us to be patient. It’s an example of “be careful what you with (or pray) for.” God just might say yes.

The best part of writing devotions is it forces me to study the Bible more, something I’ve lacked of late as well. Writing devotions will help me learn, study, further build my relationship with God, and perhaps help others do the same.

That’s my hope anyway.

Since I’m writing them for someone else, I don’t know yet if I can share them here. I’ll try, though. If not, maybe I’ll write more than I need to. We’ll see.