John 15:12

Last week I was reading John 15, one of my favorite chapters anywhere in the Bible, and read a verse I've read countless times before, but the Spirit used it to confront an area of sin. In this verse Jesus says, "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you."

The Spirit prompted me to ask myself a very simple question: "Do I want the world to hate me?" To which I could only answer with a resounding "No!" I don't want the world to hate me, especially where writing is concerned. I want the world to read my stories and love them. I want them to be commercially successful so that I can write full-time. And I realized that I was allowing this drive to be loved by the world to color what I was willing to include in my stories.

A long while ago I decided that I didn't want to be reticent about including content in my stories that might push the edges of what many Christians would feel comfortable reading, but I didn't follow that up with a decision not to be reticent about including content that might do the same for non-Christians. How imbalanced is that? The Lord helped me to see that this was going on in my heart and to begin letting it go. Hopefully the stories I write from here on out will tell the tales that are in my head and heart, regardless of how they will be received by the religious or general markets . . . even if they find no market at all.