The Easy Part
I can not remember exactly when it was given to me, but sometime in early elementary school someone gave me a journal and said I should write a story. I remember the excitement of beginning. I had a great idea, and sat down to write the opening. Of the details I can recall, there was a few kids playing in a garage with a chemistry set an eccentric uncle had given to them. Next thing they knew the thing erupted in light and a a tornado began swirling around them. Then they woke up in a place that wasn't their home, or even their world.Bestseller right? Except that is where the ink ran dry. Or rather, that is where I quit writing in it. Legos, games, pretending sticks were highly lethal weapons with my friends...all of these had a tighter grip on my mind and time. I would sometimes tell people about the book, at least for a few months after that start. Then it drifted from memory. I have no idea where that journal is today. Probably in landfill somewhere, or being recycled into Kleenex for some other kid to wipe his nose on.Over the years there have been many stories, dreams, and plans which have had tremendous starts and then spectacularly failed to manifest. Starting is the easy part.
For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.Luke 14:28-33 ESV
This morning I woke up thinking about finishing. I still think there is a book or two in there. In the church where I serve there is all the gifts and heart to radically change the community for the Kingdom. Though I always like to think I am sharing a profound truth which will make someone's life better when I write, today this one is for me...and is incomplete.What will it take to get past the easy part? To see the story written, the mission pursued, and the vision become reality? I honestly didn't want to write today. I got up, looked at my keyboard, and there was nothing there. Then I wrote anyway. That may just be the answer I was looking for.I hope today, whatever dream is in your heart, that when the words aren't there you write anyway.Shaun