Every one of us is here for a reason beyond ourselves. It’s easy to forget that sometimes. We get so caught up in the demands of daily life that it’s easy to lose sight of the longer timeline, the broader view, the deeper perspective.
Time is precious. There’s a set limit to how much we have, whether it’s the 24 hours of a day or the total years of our lives.
When I was 20, I figured I had at least another 60 years, give or take a few. But average life expectancy is a probability, not a promise. I could live to 100, or I could die tomorrow. But no matter how much time we have left, a vital question faces us.
There are too many options for how to spend our time. Will we simply spend it, or will we invest it in something worthwhile?
I want to invest it. When I take the longer view, I know the best thing to invest it in is other people.
There are many good ways to invest in others.
- Offering my help when it can lighten someone’s load.
- Giving advice when a person might want it.
- Listening when someone needs a caring ear.
- Sharing the good news about being a child of God through Jesus Christ.
As writers, we are blessed with many opportunities to reach a wider circle than just our personal friends with that Good News.
As Christians, sharing the Good News is the most important thing we can do, both in our writing and face-to-face.
It makes a difference right now in this physical world and on into eternity. In this moment, it might seem like I have all the time in the world, but we’re all going to die. I want my time on earth to be invested wisely, not just spent.
The apostle Paul summed it up well in his letter to the Philippians (Phil. 2:21-23 (NIV)):
“For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know. I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.”
We want our labor to be fruitful, but what is fruitful labor? The detailed answer is different for each of us, but for those of us who follow Jesus, part of the answer is universal. Let’s tell the people who share our lives about what Jesus has done for us. Let’s share how belonging to him has made us different people than we would have been and the joy that comes from that transformation.
As authors, we have the opportunity to live more than one life through the characters we create.
When we write our stories, it’s important to focus on producing a well-crafted, entertaining story that will delight those who read it. But we give a greater gift to our readers when we dig deeper into our character’s lives, where the spiritual dimension is as important as the physical and their struggles and triumphs reflect how God works in their lives.
Whether contemporary or historical, stories about deep conflicts and the power of Christian love to overcome them will touch and encourage our readers. This is the continuing theme of my Light in the Empire stand-alone series, which moves around the Roman empire when being a Christian was illegal and pagans with Christian friends wrestle with whether accepting the Truth is worth the risk of dying for it. I’ve shared in a previous post here about how I write spiritual arcs that feel real.
May we each know the satisfaction of time well spent by sharing the Good News through the novels we write.
