May these two quotes give you pause; they surely hit home with me. We spend way too much time absorbing other people’s thoughts and ideas about God, rather than knowing Him intimately through the Scriptures.

Are we staying connected to Him through the daily renewal of His Word? There is no other way.

“What a wealth of information for success is to be found in the best of books! But how superficial it is compared to the knowledge of Truth which comes by the Holy Spirit through his Word.”

“Your only real hope to understand Truth is to dare put away all the commentaries and footnotes concerning God and his relationship to you and to allow the Holy Spirit himself opportunity to communicate Truth to you. He alone is the Teacher (1 John 2:27; John 14:26; 16:13; 1 Corinthians 2:12-14). You are subject to error when you read the Scripture in the light and context of everything else you are reading and hearing, even from your favorite authors and speakers.”

Don Whisnant

“The writings of man are profound and interesting, but the value of them together serve us little compared to our great need to hear of God’s love and faithfulness in our quiet time by the Holy Spirit through his Word.” ~ Don Whisnant

“We should not expect to be adequate for anything God calls us to do except that Christ makes us adequate.” ~ Don Whisnant

Feeling inadequate to write used to stop me from submitting material. But Christ wanted to free me from my self-deprecating ways.

The worldly writer calls insecurity a mark of creativity, but the faith-writer joys to be a pen in God’s hand. It’s Him we trust for the words we put to paper. It’s His life within that spurs us to grow in our craft.

Is Christ our adequacy? If so, we’ll learn to soar above the critics when our identity and purpose is threatened because we know where we’re rooted. Our part is to write; His part is to render the words effective. As the firmly rooted writer-in-Christ rests in His grace, she stumbles over self less and less.

And trusting Christ for this enablement causes us not only to take more risks, but to write for His glory instead of ours.

“I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service.” ~ 1 Timothy 1:12

“Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers. . . ~ 2 Corinthians 3:5-6a

“The most essential work is not our work in the world, but God’s work in us. The most essential faithfulness is not our faithfulness to God but His faithfulness to us.” ~ Don Whisnant

“How thankful I am to Christ Jesus our Lord for choosing me as one of His messengers, and giving me the strength to be faithful to Him.”

1 Timothy 1:12 (TLB)

“Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake.” ~ E. L. Doctorow

“Like stones, words are laborious and unforgiving, and the fitting of them together, like the fitting of stones, demands great patience and strength of purpose and particular skill.” ~ Edmund Morrison

“Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write.” ~ Elie Wiesel

“A book worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then.” ~ C.S. Lewis

“The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.” ~ Flaubert

“You must often make erasures if you mean to write what is worthy of being read a second time; and don’t labor for the admiration of the crowd, but be content with a few choice readers.” ~ Horace

“Experience is an author’s most valuable asset; experience is the thing that puts the muscle and the breath and the warm blood into the book he writes.” ~ Mark Twain

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.” ~ Orson Scott Card

“Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely essential.” ~ Jessamyn West

“What I like in a good author isn’t what he says, but what he whispers.” ~ Logan Pearsall Smith

“Without my morning coffee I’m just like a dried up piece of roast goat.” ~ Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

“If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

“The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., “Over the Teacups,” 1891

“Ah! How sweet coffee tastes! Lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter than muscatel wine! I must have my coffee…” ~ Johann Sebastian Bach (1732, an aria from his ‘Kaffee-Kantate’)

“Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.” ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons” ~ T.S. Eliot