What Story are You Telling Yourself?

By Lori Stanley Roeleveld

 

Writing is hard.

For Christian writers it’s even harder. We have an enemy.

You may not appreciate that your keyboard sits on the front lines of a battle, especially if you’re simply trying to pen a cozy mystery or a light-hearted clean romance. But that’s the reality.

Stories are powerful, and we are the ones who craft them. God’s enemies want to encourage stories full of deception, darkness, and messages that draw people away from God. Christian writers fill even our fiction with truth, light, and themes designed to draw people to God. Hence, the battle.

We don’t need to be afraid, but we must be aware of enemy tactics. God has given us everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). Unless we flush out the enemies’ lies, they can sap our energy and drain our creative focus.

One strategy for defending against discouraging, disheartening, or deceptive tactics that creep in over the transom of our thinking is a single question writers should ask:

What is the story I’m telling myself about my writing at this moment?

Are you telling yourself your writing doesn’t matter?

Is the story you’re hearing that you’ll never be good enough, so why bother?

Are you hearing whispers that you’re wasting your time, that you’ll just disappoint everyone, or that no one will ever read your words?

Every writer faces those questions. Christian writers hear them over an internal megaphone just like soldiers overseas during wars hear propaganda over the air waves.

You must clear your mental deck of deception when you sit at the keyboard (or when you’re avoiding it). Invite Jesus into your thinking and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal what story you’re telling yourself right now. You’ll discover a noticeable rise in your energy.

• Does your self-talk reflect a belief in God’s desire to work through your life and your skills?
• Does it reflect a focus on God’s vision for you or do the obstacles ahead loom larger than He does?
• Do you say things to yourself you’d never say to anyone else or want said to anyone else?
• Are other people’s expectations looming like mountains you fear you won’t live up to?

The story we’re telling ourselves is just as important as the ones we’re trying to write.

When I’m struggling with hearing the wrong story in my thinking, I have pre-chosen Scriptures to which I turn. I also think about the scene from the baseball movie, A League of Their Own.

Coach Jimmy (played by Tom Hanks) decides to yell at one of his players, Evelyn, after she’s made an error. Evelyn bursts into tears and Coach Jimmy yells more, telling her, “There’s no crying in baseball.”

We often speak that to ourselves. It’s harmful, destructive, and doesn’t produce within us the desired results.

An umpire approaches Coach Jimmy and quietly instructs him that he’s found it helpful to speak with the players as he would his sister or his mother. Jimmy does so in a later scene to positive results.

This umpire, to me, represents the Holy Spirit, who provides correction, direction, and exhortation with gentleness, kindness, and self-control. God desires to write with us, to help us write, and to provide joy through the process.

What story are you telling yourself about your writing? Is it based in truth, grounded in God’s Word, and framed in reality? Or have destructive lies crept in?

Ask yourself what story you’re telling yourself. Invite Jesus to examine it with you. Your energy and focus will be renewed and soon, your fingers will fly across your keyboard.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net and Stuart Miles.

 

Lori Stanley Roeleveld is a professional coach, writer, speaker, and disturber of hobbits. She’s authored five award-winning books, with a sixth, Graceful Influence, due to release from Our Daily Bread publishing and contributed to twelve+ compilations. She is owner of Take Heart! Coaching and Freelance. Though she has degrees in Psychology and Biblical Studies, Lori learned the most from studying her Bible in life’s trenches. She speaks her mind at www.loriroeleveld.com.